El Keif Le Drogué Ou Perdu Dans La Fumée, 1949
Moderne Art Fair 2026

Hamed Abdalla  

Hamed Abdalla leaped into the unknown, with nothing in hand but a degree from the School of Geometrical Ornamentation, earned in 1935. His individuality and early independence set him apart from more academically inclined artists, as well as from the groups and movements of the thirties and forties. He founded his own art school in 1942, where he shaped many famous artists such as Taheyya Halim and Indji Aflatoon until 1948.

Despite Abdalla's independence from the artistic movements of his time- such as the 'Art and Freedom', Contemporary Art', and 'Modern Art' groups- he shared their revolutionary spirit, from both a political and artistic standpoint, but his had matured, fuelled by the 1946 Egyptian worker and student uprising. Abdalla's inspiration and passion were ever-present, expressing themselves in a plethora of ways.

He spent approximately thirty years of his life in Europe, where he was exposed to the rising modern art movements, and he introduced some of their pioneering ideas in his formal language. However, he remained critically distant from these new movements, wary of the danger presented by a potential cultural assimilation with the West.

His works based on the elegant letters of the Arabic language were an inspired way of combining his cultural roots with the modern form and with his political engagement, since he was devoured by his love of the homeland and his desire to help return it to its former glory, was of the utmost importance to him.

Abdalla's later works came closer to a pure, raw art form, not unlike Sufism. He tried to embrace the absolute and the unknown, to dissolve in the infinite universe. In doing so, he suffered great pain and angst, which he expressed in his latest period, aptly named 'Convulsions', between 1980 and 1983. In this series, the artist dramatizes an extraordinary bond with nature, in particular mountains and rocks- though we can't be certain of the specificities of these elements drawn in monochromatic grey.