01 Work, Middle East Artists, LAILA SHAWA's THE SOUK IN GAZA, with footnotes

Laila Shawa, b. 1940, Palestinian

THE SOUK IN GAZA, c. 1965

Oil on canvas laid on board

48.5 by 70.5cm. 19 by 27½in.

Private collection

Sold for 12,600 GBP in October 2020

This canvas by internationally acclaimed artist, Laila Shawa is of considerable historical significance within her artistic oeuvre. ‘The Souk’ was part of Shawa’s first solo exhibition in Gaza in 1965 entitled ‘Contrast and Contradictions’ – one year after her graduation from the Academy of Fine Art in Rome. Thereafter, it was to become part of the collection of Rashad Shawa, the Mayor of Gaza and also the artist’s father. It remained there, in Gaza, until the house was destroyed but was salvaged and relocated to Bethlehem. More on this painting

Laila Shawa (Born Gaza 1940) graduated summa cum laude in Fine Arts from the Italian Accademia di Belle Arti in 1964 and received a diploma in plastic arts from the Accademia San Giacomo in Rome. From 1965 to 1967, she returned to Gaza to teach arts and crafts to underprivileged children. She now lives and works in London. As a Palestinian artist, Shawa’s concern is to reflect the political realities of her country, becoming, in the process, a chronicler of events. Her work is based on a heightened sense of realism and targets injustice and persecution wherever their roots may be.

Her work has been exhibited in Italy, Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom, in most Arab countries, North Africa, Iraq, Russia, China, Japan, Malaysia and USA. She is represented in public and private collections across the world, including the National Galleries of Jordan and Malaysia, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the British Museum in London and the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington D.C. Her work is currently on tour in Brazil, in the Centro Cultural Banco do Brazil’s exhibition Isla, the first major exhibition of Islamic Art in Brazil. More on Laila Shawwa

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