Young Collectors Auction - exhibit-E

AdhamISMAIL1922 – 1963Lot 034Signed, Dated28 X 18.5 cm. Mixed Media on Paper 1953Estimate (US$ 2,500 - 3,500)Born in Antioch 1922, at the age of sixteen, Adham Ismail was already an accomplishedartist. Migrating into greater Syria after the annexation of the country’s northwesterncities left his birthplace under Turkish rule, Ismail later studied at the Academy of Fine Artsin Rome from 1952-1956 as part of a cultural exchange program that was initiated betweenthe Italian and Syrian governments. After working for a brief time as an art instructorin Syria upon his return, he moved to Cairo where he was a consultant to the EgyptianMinistry of Culture and subsequently taught fresco painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts inDamascus when he resettled in Syria.Although a pioneer in the expressing of Arab heritage in regional modern art, he was alsoone of the first artists to break free from the tradition of overt realism in painting, utilizingareas of flat color to detail fluid forms. Despite the astonishing fact that his professionalartistic career only lasted a decade before his abrupt death at the age of forty, Ismail’sinfluence lived on in the work of his colleagues, who recognized his great contributionsto local aesthetics. His work can be found in the National Museum of Damascus and theSyrian Ministry of Culture.