Jellal BEN ABDALLAH (Tunis 1921-2017) L'hippocampe et la muse

Lot description

Jellal BEN ABDALLAH (Tunis 1921-2017) L'hippocampe et la muse Oil on panel in triptych 80 x 33 cm each Signed top left Condition: panels cracked We thank Amin Bouker for confirming the authenticity of this work. Private collection acquired from the artist in the 1950s, then by descent. Probably made in the 1950s, this screen is part of a founding phase in Jellal Ben Abdallah's work, marked by the exploration of the female body and the marine world. Amin Bouker, in his monograph devoted to the artist, refers to a phase of "octopus-women", initiated as early as 1940, probably influenced by Hokusai's erotic plates. Here, on a tryptic format mounted as a folding screen - rare in Ben Abdallah's work - the female body is rendered in harmonious forms, freer and less hieratic than in his later periods, sitting Amazon-like on a hybrid creature half-horse, half-seahorse that seems to float in a phantasmagorical aquatic space. Ben Abdallah used to say: "Basically, I've never really changed", and in this respect, Amin Bouker explains that "it's not uninteresting to compare the early Cubist proofs of this theme with the much later ones from the neo-surrealist period, to realize the extent to which the artist's work follows the same guiding line, whatever the pictorial style adopted". A pioneer of Tunisian artistic modernity, Jellal ben Abdallah was one of the founding members of the École de Tunis. Based in Sidi Bou Saïd, an artists' village par excellence, Ben Abdallah developed a poetic universe nourished by popular culture and Mediterranean visual traditions. His works, with their delicate, uncluttered lines, evoke scenes of daily life, dreamlike female figures, marine or domestic compositions, often imbued with a gentle melancholy. Her drawing, close to miniature in its precision and finesse, is accompanied by a sober palette and a great mastery of pictorial space.