Salah Abdel Kerim

"Portrait of Woman in Yellow" Painting 20" x 16" inch by Salah Abdel Kerim

circa 1970

Salah Abdel Kerim was born in 1925 in Fayoum, Egypt to a family of five. In 1938 he was trained under the renowned Egyptian painter Hussein Bikar. He graduated in 1947 with honors in ornamentation from the faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo. In 1948 he worked as an assistant to the interior decoration section at his University, then he received a grant to pursue his education in Europe and moved to France in 1952 to study Theatre Décor and Advertisement. In 1956, he studied Cinema Décor and obtained a Ph.D. from the “Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia” in 1957. A year later, he returned to Egypt to teach at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo, he was appointed its Dean in 1982. Abdel Kerim had a special connection with animals since his childhood. It is said that he enjoyed collecting insects, birds and butterflies as a child. Through his art, Abdel Kerim wanted to strengthen the relationship between humans and animals. His fondness for them is reflective in his many representations of animals, especially in his sculptures. The artist makes them full of wonder, appealing, approachable, easy to connect with. For his sculptures, the artist used mostly wood and metal, but he is most known for his scrap metal sculptures. In fact, in the Arab art world, he was given the nickname “The Scrap Artist”. He was fascinated with metal because of the common misconception that it is hard, unworkable, and permanent. However, light and air breaking down metal is for him a reminder that the work is perishable and decaying. His first sculpture, in 1959, was exhibited in Sao Paolo Biennale, Brazil where it won the National Sculpting Award. There was never any pre-conceptual design or preparation work for his sculptures. Abdel Kerim always started out randomly, inspired by the material itself. He didn’t want to call his work neither abstract nor figurative, he preferred the term “expressive” where each work expressed its own shape. He built up his works from the center of the piece to its final form interacting with light and air. He called it: “sculpting from emptiness”. Salah Abdel Kerim was a perfectionist who strived to be fluent in several artistic languages: ceramics, oil paintings, murals, posters for cinema and theater, costuming for theater, mosaics, sketches, portraits, landscapes, miniatures. He also designed many interiors of buildings in Cairo. His creatures are almost Burtonesque and whimsical yet this does not diminish their relatability and attractiveness. The artist passed away in 1988.