Male-Female Figure with Pomegranate

Ibrahim El-Salahi swiftly became one of the most influential artists working in Sudan after the country gained independence in 1956. His paintings combine African motifs, Islamic calligraphy, and Euro-American modernism. A member of the revolutionary Khartoum school, El-Salahi contributed to the intellectual climate of postcolonial Sudan and the making of a national art and aesthetic in the 1960s. His work is characterized by the use of earthy colors, the transformation of Arabic letters into abstracted forms, and the merging of folk art with modern abstract painting. The artist once described the “Pandora’s box” of animal, plant, and, more specifically, skeletal and masked forms that seemed to open for him as he deconstructed and abstracted the shapes of written language; he was also inspired by the structure of West African masks.

A radically abstracted figure—holding a pomegranate in its right hand—plays a prominent role in Male-Female Figure and the Pomegranate. Just as striking, however, is the material surface of the work, with its array of intricate textures. This painting exemplifies the artist’s innovations of the 1960s both in its compositional complexity and its evident engagement with process. El-Salahi used enamel and oil paint as well as a technique he called “tickling,” which involved manipulating the canvas with his fingers to create the appearance of depth. Discussing this painting, he has said, “I did it in Sudan, at a time when I was focusing on . . . somber relations. I started by building the image with a mixture of white oil and enamel paints, then treated it with a glaze of burnt sienna and black oil paints mixed with linseed oil. I used an old canvas, which after some time I had rolled so that the paint would crack, because that was the effect I wanted.”