DUBAI: Highlights from Sotheby’s exhibition of highlights from its upcoming Modern & Contemporary Middle East and Arts of the Islamic World & India auctions.
Abdulhalim Radwi
‘Untitled (Desert Scene)’
The late Abdulhalim Radwi is one of the most significant Saudi artists of all time. He studied in Italy in the 1960s and his work has drawn comparisons to that of the great French impressionist Paul Cézanne and the Dutch master Vincent Van Gogh. “Radwi’s ability to merge popular culture and sentiments with newly acquired artistic techniques serves as a precursor to contemporary Saudi art today,” an old Sotheby’s catalogue states. At first, however, his style was met with confusion in his homeland, where local artistic sensibilities “very much remained grounded in more realistic artistic renderings.” Discussing his first local exhibition in 1964, Radwi said: “My works were shot down in exoticism, irony and surprise, while the people’s visual imagination in that era was held by representation and copying from reality.” The Sotheby’s catalogue continues: “He was driven by the conviction that art has a cerebral function in an environment that considered it as ornamental. According to Radwi, the very essence of a piece lies not in its physicality but in the emotions it triggers.” This piece — a mix of oil paint and sand on canvas — was created in 1975, and is expected to fetch between £40,000 and £60,000 (SAR 203k-305k) in October’s auction.
