Abdulhalim Radwi

Private Collection, Saudi Arabia (acquired directly from the artist) 

Abdulhalim Rawdi’s love of art was an inherited one. His mother was a painter and nurtured his young talent, actively encouraging him to pursue art. His career blossomed in the mid-1950s but he set himself apart from his contemporaries by winning the first official painting competition while in High School in Saudi Arabia. Still in school, Rawdi’s work The Village, earned him great merit. These accomplishments foreshadowed his rise to notoriety.

Rawdi’s fascination and love for art never wavered. In 1961 he travelled to Rome to study Fine Arts, solidifying his artistic standing in the Saudi art community. Radwi was the first Saudi to study abroad and return to Riyadh as an art teacher, creating a Western inspired artistic instruction. Later, he obtained a doctorate from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid in 1979, and then went on to become the director of Jeddah’s Centre for Fine Arts from 1968 to 1974.

In Hart Al Sham, Radwi captures the vibrancy of the city. He depicts a cityscape with figures going about their daily business in the market and cafés, while paying particular attention to the traditional Ottoman architecture in the background. The strong focus on the architectural façade is highlighted by the modular shades of blue punctuated by red cubes. The geometric shapes are a testament to his time spent in Europe and the influence of Cubism. He combined these inspirations with a traditional subject matter to create an image that conveys the magnificence and atmosphere of old-town Jeddah and is unique in style and execution. Influenced by Cezanne and Van Gogh, he has borrowed from their rapid brush strokes and vibrant hues. The treatment of his canvases with the swift and unstructured movements of his palette knife is reminiscent of many of Cezanne’s works. His brushstrokes give movement and life to his works, much in the same way as Van Gogh.

Furthermore, his trademark double signature in both Arabic and English confirms his desire to merge two cultural paradigms and reconcile two seemingly opposed traditions.  During his experience in Italy, Rawdi gained a wealth of experience of European techniques that he introduced to his students. He was driven by the conviction that art has a cerebral function in an environment that considered it as ornamental. According to Rawdi, the very essence of a piece lies not in its physicality but in the emotions it triggers.

However, his first local exhibition in 1964 was met with an audience who was unfamiliar with his stylistic representations. While his style had matured and evolved as a result of his travels and studies, local Saudi artistic sensibilities very much remained grounded in more realistic artistic renderings.  Consequently, Rawdi’s unique style of teaching disconcerted his apprentices. “My works were shot down in exoticism, irony and surprise”, al Rawdi said of his first 1964 exhibition, “while the peoples’ visual imagination in that era was held by representation and copying from reality.”

A book entitled Life Between Thought and Imagination served as a critical turning point in the artist’s career. It was with this book that he realized the power of colour in expressing emotion. Most importantly however, it stressed to him the importance of staying true to local sensibilities while also moving with the times. His work therefore is a delicate and poetic balance of tradition and innovation. Rawdi’s ability to merge popular culture and sentiments with newly acquired artistic techniques serves as a precursor to contemporary Saudi art today.