SALAH TAHER

Salah Taher (1911-2007) is known for his mastery of abstract work with hard tools, such as knives that he uses to spread translucent layers of paint. He called this weaving of colors, words and rhythms, the ‘universal language’.

Taher obtained his bachelor’s degree from the School of Fine Arts in Cairo, and then worked as an art professor, before he was appointed in the 1960s as head of the Museum of Modern Arts. In 1962, he was selected as head of the Opera, and a few years later, of the Al-Ahram newspaper, where he maintained a position as a consultant till his death.

Taher was granted the Guggenheim Foundation Award in 1961, the State Award in 1974, the first prize at the Alexandria Biennale in 1996, and in 2001, he was honored at the opening of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina with a retrospective book entitled The Brush and the Pen . in 2002, he was granted the two highest awards in Egypt; the Sciences and Arts Medal and the Mubarak Award.

His background was in academic painting, but his liberation from traditional values, after a trip to the United States in the 1950s, is emblematic of his work. Taher also painted academic portraits of many famous and celebrated Egyptians, but moved from academic realism to figurative symbolism, before reaching the abstract style he is now famous for. His purely gestural and chromatic interpretation translate his emotions into material and visible works.

Taher has exhibited extensively in Egypt, Italy, the United Stated, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland. He is known for his writings on Egyptian and international art.

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