Kadhim Hayder, (Iraq, 1932-1985)

Abstraction No.38

Abstraction No.38
oil on canvas, framed
signed "Kadhim Hayder" and dated "69" in Arabic, further signed and titled "Abstraction No.38" on the verso, executed in 1969
80 x 100cm (31 1/2 x 39 3/8in).

Provenance:
Property from a private collection, London

Kadhim Hayder was a master of weaving symbolism, poetic allegory and abstraction into compositions that were predominantly narrative in subject matter.

As a poet, he had a lifelong fascination with the Shi'ite epic of the Martyrdom of Imam Hussein and this episode forms the subject matter of his most significant body of work, The Epic of the Martyr which was exhibited in 1965 at at the National Museum of Modern Art.

The present work is a seminal example from this period; seemingly abstract in its entirety, Hayder employs cunning visual symbols that allow us to decipher his hidden narrative. Forms of varying colour's which correspond to different characters in the Martyrdom Epic populate the canvas: the dark green of Imam Hussein, the Red of Shimr and the opposing army, the Yellow of the neutral observers and the White of the martyred troops, this narrative colour coding has been used for centuries in Tazieh "passion plays" and performances throughout the Sh'ite world

In other clearly figurative compositions, the white horses of Hussein are seen mourning the death of their Martyr beneath an ominous red moon. In this work, the abstracted patch of white, representing the purity of the fallen, is assaulted by a mass of opposing colour and enveloped in a sea of grey.