Saloua Raouda Choucair

(Lebanese, 1916-2017)

Interform height: 60cm

Footnotes

Provenance:
Property from the collection of Georges El-Zeenny, Beirut
Thence by descent to the present owner, London

"A critic once told me that my work has a European influence. I object! It is a universal influence, what I experience everyone in the world experiences, and in fact, all of the rules I apply to my sculpture are derived from Islamic Geometric design"
- Saloua Choucair

Bonham's has the distinct privilege of presenting a major 1960's sculpture from Lebanese pioneer Saloua Raouda Choucair, whose tragic passing this year marked the end of prolific and illustrious career spanning nearly a century.

From the collection of Georges El-Zeenny, the late proprietor of Beirut's much-loved haunt "The Smugglers Inn", the sculptures distinguished provenance is testament to two extraordinary lives; the visionary artist who almost singlehandedly defined Lebanon's 20th century sculptural legacy, and the indefatigable patron who protected her and others works during the dark days of the countries harrowing civil war.

The present work is the largest sculpture by Saloua Choucair ever to come to market; solid, robust and imposing, the sculpture captures the longevity and resilience of the natural form from which it was carved.
A seemingly organic, but carefully pre-meditated system of shapes and forms punctuate the sculptural surface, whose porousness straddles the border between artistic creation and natural growth. The marriage of the abstract, organic, and manmade in Saloua's work can-not be ignored and recalls the work of her near contemporaries in Europe who were experimenting with "biomorphic abstraction".

"Biomorphic Abstraction" describes the use of abstract forms based on those found in nature. Also referred to as Organic Abstraction, this type of abstract art was not a school or movement, but a striking feature of the work of many different artists, such as Arp, Kandinsky and British sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. Found in both abstract painting and abstract sculpture, as well as the design of furniture, the idiom was associated with the philosophy of Henri Bergson (1859-1941), who believed that evolutionary processes of nature and artistic creativity derive from the same source.

Choucair's long, varied and wide-ranging career has seen the Beirut-born artist experiment with a vast array of materials, forms and ideas. Blending ideas and approaches that draw on her twin guiding influences of Sufi Islam, and Modernist sculpture of the mid-20th century, Choucair's work emerges into being, complete with dynamic energy and poetic physicality.

Her work allows the audience to question the one-sided Western concept of modernity. Her exhibition held 1947 at the Arab Cultural Gallery in Beirut is considered to have been the Arab world's first abstract painting exhibition. Choucair left Lebanon for Paris in 1948 where she studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts as well as attending Fernand Léger's studio. Choucair was one of the first Arab artists to participate in the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris in 1950.

Through her work Choucair pursues her interest in science, mathematics, Islamic art and poetry. Her work can be characterized through her experimental choice of materials alongside her elegant use of modular and curvaceous forms borrowed from traditions of Islamic design.