For some years now I have become increasingly conscious that almost none of the works by Salah Taher in our possession predate 1980. Troubled by this, I tried everything I could to acquire his early works; works that date back to the beginning of his career in the 1920s. After all, these pieces are a record of, and living witness to, the course of Taher’s brave and fearless artistic journey. At first known for his unparalleled technical mastery he then rebelled against the strictures of academic art, entering the private world of his imagination and founding his own distinguished school of painting. I had almost given up hope when by pure chance I came across, in a long forgotten closet, a large collection of the artist’s sketches all produced between 1930 and 1970. Salah Taher’s birthday was approaching, and the find was a wonderful surprise: a fitting birthday gift.

Sketches are always of particular significance to art lovers and critics as they convey the vibrant artistic feelings that are later to be controlled and formalized in the finished piece and as a result are sometimes truer. The sketches reveal the different stages in Salah Taher’s evolution as an artist and his first forays into his own private world.

Ayman Salah Taher