Ibrahim El-Salahi: A visionary African modernist shows at Tate

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Karen Hasin-Bromley visits Tate Modern to see the work of a well-travelled artist who combines Sudanese tradition with modernism

Ibrahim El-Salahi (b.1930) is described as an African modernist.  His work covers painting, drawing and calligraphy, all of which are included in the exhibition.  El-Salahi learnt to read and write by transcribing sections of the Qur’an in calligraphic Sudanese script. The importance of calligraphy in his work is evident in his painting and drawing methods.  After studying painting at Khartoum’s School of Design he was awarded a government scholarship to study painting and calligraphy at the Slade School of Fine Art in London (1954–7).  He then incorporated this experience   of Western modernism into his work.

From London El-Salahi returned home to Sudan and began teaching at the Khartoum Technical Institute.  He became one of the leading artists of a movement known as the ‘Khartoum School’, whose aim was to define a shared Sudanese Cultural identity.  This school associated with other groups, which included poets, literary critics and other intellectuals. These groups were interested in creating a new aesthetic in art and literature in Africa.  El-Salahi’s art at that time was focused on reinterpreting local traditions. His work was described as too academic and Westernized, however, and failed to resonate with the local audience. He reacted to this by travelling around Sudan looking for new inspiration. His Self Portrait of Suffering (1961) is a reflection of his confused and uncertain state of mind at this time. The manic swirling hair and eyes have a traditional feel while the teeth-filled open mouth is reminiscent of the bull in Picasso’s Guernica, betraying his Western influences. 

His travels led to a new personal style that more successfully merged his academic knowledge with traditional Sudanese art practices. At this time El-Salahi displayed a strong tendency towards depicting abstract human forms mixed with calligraphic ones, as In Funeral and the Crescent (1963) where a procession of mourners carries a corpse towards the viewer.  The elongated human forms, characterized by their penetrating eyes, are composed in a calligraphic manner.  The crescent moon on the left is an Islamic motif that recurs throughout his work. 

After his travels in the 1960s, El-Salahi returned to Khartoum as deputy undersecretary of culture at the Ministry of Information.  In 1975 he was accused of anti-government activities and held without trial in prison for over six months. On his release he left Sudan and took up self-imposed exile in Doha, Qatar.  This period he describes as his third phase of artistic development, in which he found self-confidence, satisfaction and self-assuredness. His incarceration had a profound effect on his art.  Prison Notebook (1976) documents his prison experience.  This piece, to me, was the highlight of the exhibition. The last 20 years have seen the publication of a number of prison memoirs written by Sudanese prisoners.  Rarely, though, have they been in the form of a visual artwork.  These pen and ink drawings of El-Salahi’s are described as an open-ended, endless, organic growth painting. Created piecemeal, executed and framed as separate but related units, they are assembled here to form one unified piece.

El-Salahi says that he does not subscribe to the historical distinctions between painting and drawing made in the Western tradition of art, which associates colour and shape with painting and line drawing respectively. ‘There is no painting without drawing and there is no shape without line… in the end all images can be reduced to lines’. He describes his monochrome, pen-and-ink works on paper, as ‘Shades’ in black and white.

In 1998 El-Salahi moved to Oxford. Influenced by the British countryside and, being reminded of the haraza tree that grows in the Sudan, he created a series of paintings called ‘The Tree’(from 2000 to 2010).  These pieces show geometric patterns, refined lines and bright colours. 

This exhibition has successfully brought together the range of El-Salahi’s works, from his portraits of the 1950s to the Flamenco Dancers of 2012–13. It is a fascinating trip though one man’s life and his art.