Mona Saudi

Café de la Press Gallery, Beirut 
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 1963

Beirut, Café de la Press, Solo Show, 1963 

This work is in very good condition. Some minor paint loss to the upper left edge of the painting and alongside the right and left edge of the board. Three hairline scratches can be noticed above the heads of the figures. Colours: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, with the overall hues being closer to a pastel blue.
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Sotheby’s is privileged to offer one of the earliest works by Mona Saudi, the renowned Jordanian artist. Painted in 1962 when the artist was only 17 years of age, it was exhibited at Saudi’s first solo exhibition at Café de la Press in the winter of 1963 in Beirut. This exhibition would be a ground breaking moment in Saudi’s life and artistic career funding her trip to Paris where she would join École des Beaux-Arts.

Painted in the style of Picasso’s Blue Period, Saudi’s painting of the Lovers captures a poignant moment between a man and a woman. A scene of deep love and embrace, the severity of the colours chosen by the artist is offset by the elegance and fragility of two figures merging into one body. After her move to Paris, Saudi would progress to sculpture and explore themes such as birth, motherhood, fertility and growth in her work. There in Paris, Saudi would create her first work in stone in 1965.

Her fascination with creativity started at an early age as the artist says: “All people are creative people…. Art is something that makes people aware of their humanity and of the value of life. It gives sense to life. This is what I would like to give people through my sculptures. It is what I was born to do.”

In the present work, her sensual brushstrokes and her masterful use of soft hues ranging from blues to greys to whites allow her to execute strikingly sculptural bodies almost as if carved from stone foreshadowing the early signs of her passion in form and consequently the art of sculpting.

“I’m a dreamer,” says the soon-to-be 65-year-old. “I began my life by dreaming, and I still dream today, of more sculptures, more exhibits, more discoveries. I don’t think of time as a burden. When I was 17, I felt much older than I do now. I still have a lot of things to do.”

Mona Saudi’s works are in the collections of leading international institutions including Institute du Monde Arabe, Paris; the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington D.C.; the National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman; Sharjah Art Foundation and the British Museum, London. The artist moved to Beirut in 1969 where she still lives and works. Lovers by Saudi is an extremely rare work by this prominent artist to ever come up at auction and is undeniably a collector’s item.  

I shall sculpt for you two lovers
Always two: Male/Female
Mother/Earth and Son/Flesh
Form embracing another
Dialogue/Silence

For what is found in the dream,
Exist on earth

Man is the seedling of his own dream

Mona Saudi, Sculptures