Miroir de l'indicible (Mirror of the unspeakable)

Painted in the 1950s, in the midst of the rapid technological and scientific development of mankind towards new discoveries in space, Miroir de l'indicible (Mirror of the unspeakable), also referenced as Ombres et lumières (Shadows and light), is a pivotal piece from Abd al-Hadi El-Gazzar’s rich artistic oeuvre. Works from his ‘Space’ period mark the artist’s drastic turn towards abstraction. The present work presents a richly textured surface rendered with a densely meshed web of drip paint, beneath which subtle hues of blue, pink and earthy colours emerge. Conceived during El-Gazzar’s time in Rome, his venture into abstraction was one of his ways to engage with the bustling Italian art scene of the 1950s, and of translating contemporary themes into his own visual language. The work stands as a testament to El-Gazzar’s distinct ability to reflect on the transforming world and people around him.

In Italy, he was directly confronted with the art trends revolving around abstraction that had emerged during the Post-War era in Europe, one of which was Lucio Fontana’s Movimento Spaziale (Spacialist Movement). The realisation of the infinity of the cosmos urged artists like Fontana to conceive an art in which they could explore its limitless boundaries. The texture and somber colours of Fontana’s ‘buchi’ and ‘gessi’ series, characterised by their materiality and their brown, gray, and green tones, recall El-Gazzar’s abstract works from the same period. The verso of this work reveals a painting that relates to his drawing titled Set El-Banat, donated to the Museum of the Faculty of Fine arts in Alexandria by Mahmoud Saïd. The duality between the abstract and figurative sides of the work highlights El-Gazzar's transcendent position as father of Egyptian modernism within a modernising world.

Born in Alexandria in 1925, he began his academic life in the Faculty of Medicine. He abandoned his medical career to later join the School of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1945. Together with other students, including Samir Rafi, Hamed Nada, Maher Raif, Kamal Youssef, Ibrahim Massouda, he founded the Contemporary Art Group under the tutelage of Hussein Youssef Amin. In the 1950s, El-Gazzar enrolled at the Central Restoration Institute in Rome and while in Italy he participated in the Venice Biennale in 1952, 1956, and 1960 and in the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1957, winning the Bronze Medal Award.