Alcove – Intimate Essays on Arab Modernist Artists

Alcove: Intimate Essays on Arab Modernist Artists is a compilation of articles narrated by the relatives, friends, or students of modernists from the Arab world and authored by Dubai-based writer Myrna Ayad. Some essays have been featured in Remembering the Artist, a monthly series for The National, the UAE's leading English daily. At once an intimate portrayal and recollection, the articles celebrate the lives, careers, and personas of some of the region's pioneering artists, including Shafic Abboud, Hamed Abdallah, Etel Adnan, Layla Al Attar, Nahil Bishara, Huguette Caland, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Ali Omar Ermes, Abdel Hadi El Gazzar, Paul Guiragossian, Mohammed Ghani Hikmat, Nabila Hilmi, Menhat Hilmy, Jumana El Husseini, Louay Kayyali, Helen Khal, Baya Mahieddine, Mohamed Melehi, Fateh Moudarres, Nuha Al Radi, Aref El Rayess, Mona Saudi, Juliana Seraphim, Abdullah Al Shaikh, Asim Abu Shakra, Hassan Sharif, Hussein Shariffe, Laila Shawa, Hedi Terki and Madiha Umar, as told by those nearest and dearest to them.
Featuring archival material and images of artworks as well as of the artists themselves—in their studios, at exhibitions, during travels and at family or social gatherings—the essays and corresponding visuals span the decades of the 1950s through to the 1980s. In presenting an otherwise untold narrative of these artists recounted by close friends and family, the articles depict new and fascinating insights about the lives of these late greats, their agonies and ecstasies, and trials and tribulations.
The origin of the word, alcove, is rooted in the Arabic, al qubba, meaning a vault or chamber. The choice to name this book Alcove: Intimate Essays on Arab Modernist Artists is rooted in two reasons: on the one hand, it pays tribute to the Arab legacy, then, and now via these prized modernists; and on the other hand, the word "alcove" reflects on the preciousness of the contained essays, inviting readers into a vault of prized passages.