Hamed Abdalla

Hamed Abdalla (Cairo, 1917–1985) is a pioneer of Egyptian and Arab modernism. A self-taught artist from a modest Upper-Egyptian family, he rose to prominence early in his career. Abdalla's work centered on the development of what he called the "Creative Word," written words expressed in paint, blending abstraction and human forms. Abdalla held his first solo exhibition in 1941, before exhibiting widely throughout Egypt in the 1940s. This included a solo show at Cairo's Museum of Modern Art (1949) at which point art critics considered his work as falling under a new school for Egyptian art. At the same time, Abdalla opened his studio in Cairo to teach "the next generation" of local artists, namely Tahia Halim, Gazbia Sirry, Inji Efflatoun, and Georges El Bahgory. Following a trip to Paris, Abdalla's works were exhibited at the Gallery Bernheim-Jeune (1950), a group show at the Louvre in Paris, and a show at the Egyptian Institute in London (1951). From the mid-1950s onwards, he exhibited throughout Europe, the US and Asia, including a group show at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (1956). Abdalla left Egypt for Denmark (1956) and France (1966), but was always committed to the pan-Arab movement and hence continued to exhibit widely in the Middle East and North Africa. Abdalla's works are in leading international collections and museums such as the Modern Art Museum, Cairo; the Tate Modern, London; the Museum of Modern Art, Tunis; Barjeel Art Collection; the Mathaf-Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; and the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris.

Submitted by Art D'Egypte