When I first began discussions in 2014 regarding Imperfect Chronology, an exhibition that would survey the Barjeel Art Foundation’s collection with Dr Omar Kholeif, a fundamental question emerged regarding “Arab” culture as a point of departure for building the Barjeel’s Collection.
My aim in assembling a collection of art of interconnected figures who perambulate in and around the diaspora of the twenty two nations where Arabic is the official language, I argued, has always been an inclusive and porous parameter, just as several museums of American art consider the attendant the native, immigrant and diasporic communities of those places. That said, Arab culture, as Lebanese-British artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan noted on the first podcast Listening with Artists, is something that one can also choose to subscribe to. It can have historically been as much of a formal abstraction if anything.
Over the last decade, I honed my research into the field of Arab abstraction—studying the formal patterns, materials and colors of Arab cultural creativity and its contributions to the field of modernity. Abstraction, perhaps unsurprisingly, was historically a preferred purview for women artists, as it provided an informal outlet for female-born artists for expressions, broaching cultural subjects and taboos via encoded language without drawing attention from dominant patriarchal structures, which have operated in many Arabic-speaking nations that did not give women equal rights as men. Such remains the case in many a context. Pioneering figures such as Madiha Umar (1908–2005) drew inspiration from Lettrism (Hurufiyya), integrating Arabic calligraphic techniques into landscapes and tessellating geometric worlds reminiscent of architectural worlds, as a means of cultural assertion, innovating a method of expression entirely her own.
In contrast, artists such as Huguette Caland (1931–2019) and Afaf Zurayk (1948–) were wholly immersed in the spirit of the abstract idiom, using various approaches to present themes of sensuality that would be deemed taboo, including intimate explorations of the human body such as nudity via self-portraiture. The numbers game of Arab art has historically, like all art, been a male-dominated one. Every western museum must reconcile with the historical injustice of a past that exiled women from the field of making, from an erasure, the suppression of voice, or the destruction of their artwork.
It is for this reason that I also find the materiality of the works produced by women artists worthy of note. In colonial societies, formal artistic education was overseen by expatriate tutors. For instance, the American University of Beirut ushered in its arts faculty from Chicago in the mid-twentieth century and the first official arts school in the region, the School of Fine Art in Cairo, was led by French sculptor Guillaume Laplagne (1870–1927). The heroism of the male painter and sculptor who uses robust materials is one that is bifurcated in the use of materials by several women artists.
The use of henna, and glass, the introduction of sand and silk, and the popularization of ceramics tend to be constituents that were heralded by women artists. Their interpolation with the familiar also supported a gradual democratization of visual culture in countries where visual literacy is an ongoing struggle due to the lack of art history departments within universities, of which, very few exist up until this day. Although these forms are not purely abstract, they often lent themselves to such approaches. In moments of wartime during the last century, the metaphor of conflict was represented in the skin of these spheres, allowing pause, distance, and contemplation.
In 2014, during a visit to the studio of Samia Halaby (1936–), one of the most esteemed living Arab artists, I invited her to personally select an artwork she wished to see included in a new Barjeel art collection hang rather than making the selection myself. She chose her painting White Cube in Brown Cube (1969), a significant piece that exemplifies her innovative approach to abstraction. Alongside the painting, Halaby graciously provided me with an essay that added much-needed depth to our understanding of her vision. In it she writes:
The painting White Cube Inside a Brown Cube is possibly the most complex statement of my thinking on the picture plane. It talks about the relationship of concrete objects, the illusion of it, and ideas of space and the boundaries of art. The intimate relationship of the limited cubic space with the perimeter of the painting is a formal attribute I inherited from my love of Arabic abstraction.
Over the years, I have had the privilege of remaining in contact and interviewing Samia in Sharjah, Dubai, Washington, DC, and New York City while taking my students from New York University and Columbia University to visit her studio, each encounter further illuminating her profound contributions to art history. I found that establishing a personal relationship with her allowed for a deeper understanding and appreciation. The field of abstract art is so often a product of an artist’s psychological thought process and rationalization.
In the region of the Arab World, abstract art began to emerge around the 1930s in the work of artists such as Khadiga Riad (1914–1981). Although barely a recognized name today, the Egyptian artist was the first in the region to consistently engage with the abstract form. Her enduring spirit and commitment to making is impressive considering that women were not entitled to professionally train in art in Egypt until the Higher Institute of Fine Arts for Women Teachers was inaugurated in 1939.
Despite contested debates due to a lack of historical literature, those who would be deemed Arabs have been deemed to have been making modern art since the mid-19th century, constructing their own culturally situated view of portraiture and landscape art. Yet it was only in 1948 that the first exhibition devoted exclusively to abstract art occurred in Lebanon—and indeed the region—was held.
The significant event was led by a now legendary female artist, a pioneer of global abstraction, Saloua Raouda Choucair (1916–2017), whose art was the subject of a major Tate Modern retrospective curated by Dia Art Foundation Director Jessica Morgan in 2013. This event ushered in a new era of artistic inquiry. Choucair’s first bout of recognition took place during what was dubbed Lebanon’s “golden age”, which broadly spanned the 1950s to the mid-1970s, peaking in the 1960s. Three figures today (not then) serve as the prominent leading abstract exponents of the time: Choucair, Huguette Caland (1931–2019) and Etel Adnan (1925–2021). Closer examination has revealed layers of unpeeled history: innumerable women who have made profound contributions to the field of abstract art, who should be recognized within the global canon of art.
Among these are Nadia Saikali (1936–) and Samia Osseiran Junblatt (1944–2024), whose radiant landscapes converge parallel histories of color across expressionistic planes. Helen Khal (1923-2009), who opened the first contemporary art gallery in Lebanon with her ex-husband Yusuf Al Khal, was equally an artist, author and educator who, as Carla Chammas, Rachel Dedman and Dr Omar Kholeif remind us in their volume, Gallery One and Beirut in the 1960s played a pivotal role in ushering a space for female artists by creating a transcultural meeting point for artists. Yvette Achkar (1928–2024), Oumaya Alieh Soubra (1926–2024) and Vera Yeramian (1926–1990s) also remain integral to the narrative of Lebanese and Arab abstraction.
Less recognized is Nadia Saikali, whose work I attempted to acquire before the 2020 exhibition Taking Shape, the first exhibition on Arab abstraction, which began at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University. In the fall of 2020, I was to teach at my alma mater, the American University of Paris, gratefully the Lebanese art gallerist and researcher Saleh Barakat, I had the opportunity to meet her in person and express my appreciation and speak about the meanings of the two paintings we had acquired. Mrs. Saikali informed me that her paintings were inspired by her original passion for ballet, which she could not pursue. Therefore, she channeled her dance onto the canvas—the space of painting for her had become a portal for gestures to become animate.
The innovative movement in abstraction flourished further south for a pivotal period under the guidance of Fahrelnissa Zeid (1901–91), who mentored and taught a generation of artists and art practitioners. This generation includes figures such as Suha Shoman (1944–), founder of Darat Al Funun, the region’s first contemporary art space; Ufemia Rizk (1943–), and Hind Nasser (1940–), who are all present in major collections around the world. Meanwhile, Syrian artists such as Simone Fattal (1942–), Asma Fayoumi (1943) and Leila Nseir (1941–2023) have been vital to expanding the contours of the abstract plane from the canvas in a range of media—the subjects of significant lore and storytelling.
I have been privileged to cultivate lasting personal relationships with several of these artists—many of whom held or kept their work from public view or sale. To respect their wishes and to work to translate the various ideas of these artists, in 2019, I made a commitment that the Barjeel Art Foundation would transform into a gender-balanced collection. Since then, we committed to only showcase an equal measure of male and female artists in our displays. The history of eliding women cannot be corrected in an instant; it demands presence. The task of dedicated relationship and worldbuilding allows for this, as the ratio of male to female sales in galleries and auctions is still, never, gender-balanced, regardless of the desire and best intentions for change.
I am reminded of the late French curator Raoul-Jean Moulin (1934–2014), who notably organized the Paris Biennale and helped curate the 36th French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1972. We were fortunate to have acquired the painting Bribes de Corps (1971) in 2018 by Huguette Caland through the Crait+Müller auction house in Paris, which originally belonged to Mr. Moulin, who, it transpired, was an avid collector of Huguette Caland’s works. Their relationship appears to have transcended professional contact, developing into a deep personal connection. Further testament to his engagement with her practice is the 1986 publication dedicated to Caland’s many oeuvres, which included a text authored by Mr. Moulin. In the essay, Moulin writes that “between these two poles of attraction, chronologically close but plastically distant, perhaps lies the true nature of Huguette Caland—”through the force of being shared and united”—her ability to open painting to the exploration of other senses, at the boundaries of the real and the imaginary.” Mr. Moulin’s recognition of Caland’s “true nature” was a result of a decade’s long friendship with the artist allowed him to comprehend her significance and potential long before she came to be a darling of museums or biennials, as she is today.
As the founder of Barjeel and a writer myself, my interactions with Samia Halaby, along with other women artists, have also extended beyond mere professional exchange. Our multiple convenings have deepened my understanding of her practice and artistic philosophy. Like Mr. Moulin, I recognize the enduring significance and evolving resonance of Halabi’s work, both its visual vocabulary, its intellectual breadth, as well as its phenomenological potential to quite simply, astound. This personal engagement underscores the unique collector-artist bond—a relationship rooted in mutual respect, shared exploration, and a commitment to artistic freedom.
This article was originally published in Brooklyn Rail on March 2025. A screenshot of this article can be downloaded here.
