Fann A Porter and The Workshop Dubai are pleased to present COLLECTORS EYE, an exclusive exhibition by ZAAT. The exhibition will present a selection of collectible silkscreen, lithograps and etchings by leading artists from the Arab World and beyond.
Featuring modern masters to contemporary artists, this exhibition will present works by artists ARMAN, Kamal Boullata, Enaya Bukhary, Leonardo Cremonini, Dia Al Azzawi, Samia Halaby, Omar Khouri, Dr Suheir Osman, Juliana Seraphim, Dodi Tabbaa, Edouard Trémeau, Sabry Mansour and Zena Assi.
Mostly renowned for their outstanding paintings, sculptures, and installations ; Collectors Eye 1 puts focus on works on paper revealing new ideas, techniques and materials in a powerful display of creative experimentation and aims to provide a comprehensive selection of prints from the secondary market.
In 1961, ARMAN (Armand Fernandez, b. 1928 – d. 2005) was a founding member of the Nouveau Réalisme group along Jean Tinguely and Yves Klein. Later, he emigrated to the United States and lived and worked in New York until his death in 2005. His works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Tate Gallery in London, and the Musée d’Art Moderne ed d’Art Contemporain in Nice, among others. Notably, Andy Warhol owned two of his works, and Arman appeared in the Warhol’s film “Dinner at Daley’s”.
An artist and art historian, Kamal Boullata (b. 1942) creates work in which the Palestinian identity and the conditions of exile form the basis of his artistic explorations. He graduated from the Academy of Rome and the Corcoran Art Museum School in Washington, DC. His works are found in both private and public collections, including the British Museum, London; the Museum of the Alhambra, Granada; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; New York Public Library, New York; Bibliothèque Louis Notari, Monaco; Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick; and Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman.
Born in Damascus in 1960, Syrian artist Enaya Bukhary is a member in both the Union of Syrian Fine Artists and Friends of Art Association. Her work can be found in the Syrian Ministry of Culture, Qatar Museum of Fine Arts and private collections in France, Spain, Greece, US, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Dubai, Vienna, Tunisia and Lebanon.
Born in Italy, Leonardo Cremonini (b. 1925-d. 2010) attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna and began exhibiting his figurative works, gaining fame in the US and France. Many prominent cultural figures championed his work such as painter Francis Bacon, writers W. H. Auden, Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino as well as the Director of MoMa who described his canvases as having a "spirit of timeless monumentality." Retrospectives of Cremonini’s work have been held in museums of Basel, Brussels, Metz, Paris, Prague, Siena, Strasbourg, Tokyo, Monte Carlo, Grenoble, and Milan.
Recognized as one of the pioneers of modern Arab art, Dia al Azzawi (b. 1939), started his artistic career in 1964, after graduating from the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad. A socially and politically committed artist, his work is nourished by popular culture and folkloric mythologies, contemporary wars and the violence embedded in the history of Iraq. Halfway between figurative and abstract, his work is at the same time referential and decorative, expressive and open, as is seen in “From Akka (Palestine) death came to Tal el Zaatar” (Lebanon). This work is part of a series that memorializes a massacre of Palestinians that was published in “Illustrated poems for Tel el Zaatar” with text by Moroccan writer, Tahar Ben Jelloun.
Al-Azzawi played a foundational role in Iraqi art movements such as the New Vision Group (1969) and the One Dimension Group (1971). His work is found in international private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art- Baghdad, Damascus and Tunis; Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah; Kinda Foundation, Saudi Arabia; Una Foundation, Casablanca; Arab Monetary Fund, Abu Dhabi; Development Fund, Kuwait; Jeddah International Airport; British Museum, London; Tate Modern, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris; Colas Foundation, Paris; Harba Collection, Iraq and Italy; Gulbenkian Collection, Barcelona; and Library of Congress and the World Bank, Washington, DC.
A forerunner of contemporary abstraction in the Arab world, Samia Halaby (b. 1936) is a leading abstract painter and a prominent scholar. After receiving her Masters in Painting from Indiana University, she studied geometric abstraction in Islamic architecture around the Eastern Mediterranean. Halaby has been collected by international institutions including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of Art (New York and Abu Dhabi); Yale University Art Gallery; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Art Institute of Chicago; Cleveland Museum of Art; Institut du Monde Arabe; and the British Museum. She was the first full-time female associate professor at the Yale School of Art and publishes academic articles about Palestinian art.
Lebanese artist Omar Khouri (b.1978) graduated from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston and works primarily in painting, comics, and film. In 2006, he co-founded Samandal Comics and was the co-writer, concept artist, robot designer and actor in the award winning Lebanese Science Fiction film “The Last Days of the Man of Tomorrow.” Khouri’s work has been exhibited and is held in collections in the US, UK, Europe, Japan and Lebanon.
Egyptian artist Suheir Osman (b. 1952) received her PhD in applied arts and is a professor at Helwan University. Specializing in textiles, design and printing she has exhibited in Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia, Belgium, Romania, France, Sudan, Netherlands, India, Portugal, Chile, Spain, Oman, Kuwait, Austria, Cyprus, China, Japan and Iraq. She has published numerous academic texts for journals and conferences and has received over 30 local and international awards.
Juliana Seraphim (b. 1934-d. 2005) was among the first waves of Palestinian refugees to move to Lebanon in 1952. She worked in refugee relief while attending art classes and training with the painter Jean Khalifié. Seraphim was awarded scholarships to France, Italy and Spain and represented Lebanon in the Biennale of Paris, the Biennale of Alexandria and the Biennale of Sao Paulo. Her work has been shown internationally in institutions such as: Museum of the City of Viareggio, Italy; The "Musée du suréalisme", Paris; The National Gallery, Amman; Sursock Museum, Beirut; Museum of the Arab World Institute, Paris; Barcaccia Art Gallery, Rome; Chenill's Gallery, London 1967; Smithsonian Institution, Washington; Imperial Museum of Tokyo; and Belvedere Museum, Tunis.
Amman-based Dodi Tabbaa (b. 1952) was born in Pakistan and received her BFA in Fine Arts and Graphic Design in Lahore and a post-graduate diploma in printmaking, textile design, typography in the United Kingdom. Her work can be found in the public collections of Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman; Bangladesh National Gallery Dhaka; French Cultural Centre Amman; Jordan Ministry of Culture & Youth Amman; Arab Bank Amman; Al Mansourieh Foundation Saudi Arabia and in private collections in Dubai, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Thailand, Jordan, Finland, Bahrain, Norway, U.K., USA, France, Switzerland, Holland, Spain, Indonesia, Cyprus, Pakistan, Brazil, Italy, Portugal, Canada, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Russia.
French artist Édouard Trémeau (b.1936), studied at the School of Applied Arts, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris and École Normale Supérieure de Cachan. His work is in public collections such as LAM (Musée d'Art Moderne du Nord); Villeneuve d'Ascq, Musée de l'Hospice Comtesse, Lille; Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, Lille; and the Sursock Museum, Beirut. studied at the School of Applied Arts, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris and École Normale Supérieure de Cachan. His work is in public collections such as LAM (Musée d'Art Moderne du Nord); Villeneuve d'Ascq, Musée de l'Hospice Comtesse, Lille; Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, Lille; and the Sursock Museum, Beirut.
Egyptian artist Sabry Mansour (b. 1943) received his BA and MA in Fine Arts from Helwan University in Cairo. At the same university, he taught painting and was the Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts for three years. He participated in numerous exhibitions, festivals and biennales both nationally and in Bulgaria, France, Russia, Spain, Germany, Italy, Kuwait, Tunisia and Mexico. Mansour has won many international awards and has publications on his work including recent retrospectives.
Born in Lebanon, Zena Assi (b. 1974) graduated from l’Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts (ALBA) and taught drawing and visual communication at different universities. Her work has been at auction at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonhams and Phillips and is part of collections such as ALBA, Barjeel Art Foundation and Institut du Monde Arabe.