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Safeya Binzagr (b. 1940, Saudi Arabia, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – d. September 12, 2024, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) was a Saudi Arabian artist, active in the art scene of Jeddah. She opened a museum and gallery, the Darat Safeya Binzagr, in 2000. She was the only artist in her country to have their own museum.
Binzagr was born in 1940 to a prosperous merchant family in Jeddah. She was privately taught art in Egypt and went on to earn a degree from Saint Martin's School of Art in London, England, in 1965.
Binzagr's first exhibition took place in 1968. In 1970, she was the first woman to hold a solo exhibition of her work in Saudi Arabia. Despite her art being presented, Binzagr was not allowed to attend the openings of her own exhibitions until Aramco held a private exhibition of her work in 1976. She was instead represented by male members of her family. In 1973, she chose to stop selling her art. In 1979, Binzagr published a book about Saudi Arabian art called Saudi Arabia, An Artist's View of the Past. The book has been translated into English and French.
Binzagr's work uses various mediums, ranging from oil paint, watercolor, pastel, drawing and etchings, and often centers around daily life in Saudi Arabia. She has series of works based on themes such as marriage customs, local costumes and old homes in Saudi Arabia. Binzagr paints cultural themes in order to preserve the cultural traditions of her country. Some of her paintings are based on descriptions given to her by older women about their lives. Binzagr meticulously researches her paintings, either by capturing through photographs images of buildings, craftwork and neighborhoods or by looking through historic documents and photography. Much of the history Binzagr has recorded belongs to the Hejaz cultural tradition.
In 1989, she started to imagine a place where she could permanently display and curate her work. The museum took about nine years of planning and construction and was opened in 2000. Binzagr's work can be seen at her museum, the Darat Safeya Binzagr, where admission is free. The museum served as her home, her studio, and as a gallery of her work. Binzagr hosted public events at her museum to promote art in Saudi Arabia.
Safeya Binzagr died on September 12, 2024, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
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Safeya Binzagr (Arabic: صفية بن زقر; 1940 – 12 September 2024) was a Saudi Arabian artist, active in the art scene of Jeddah.[1] She opened a museum and gallery, the Darat Safeya Binzagr, in 2000.[2] She was the only artist in her country to have their own museum.[3]
Early life and education
[edit]Binzagr was born in 1940 to a "well-known merchant family" in Jeddah.[4] She was privately taught art in Egypt and went on to earn a degree from St Martin's School of Art in 1965.[2]
Career
[edit]Binzagr's first exhibition took place in 1968.[5] In 1970, she was the first woman to hold a solo exhibition of her work in Saudi Arabia.[6] Despite her art being presented, Binzagr was not allowed to attend the openings of her own exhibitions until Aramco held a private exhibition of her work in 1976.[7] She was instead represented by male members of her family.[7] In 1973, she chose to stop selling her art.[8] In 1979, Binzagr published a book about Saudi Arabian art called Saudi Arabia, An Artist's View of the Past.[4] The book has been translated into English and French.[9]
Her work uses various mediums, ranging from oil paint, watercolor, pastel, drawing and etchings,[4] and often centers around daily life in Saudi Arabia.[4] She has series of works based on themes such as marriage customs, local costumes and old homes in Saudi Arabia.[10] Binzagr paints cultural themes in order to preserve the cultural traditions of her country.[10] Some of her paintings are based on descriptions given to her by older women about their lives.[11] Binzagr meticulously researches her paintings, either by capturing through photographs images of buildings, craftwork and neighborhoods or by looking through historic documents and photography.[10] Much of the history she has recorded belongs to the Hejaz cultural tradition.[9]
In 1989, she started to imagine a place where she could permanently display and curate her work.[12] The museum took about nine years of planning and construction and was opened in 2000.[10] Binzagr's work can be seen at her museum, the Darat Safeya Binzagr, where admission is free.[13] The museum serves as her home, her studio, and as a gallery of her work.[14] Binzagr hosted public events at her museum to promote art in Saudi Arabia.[9]
Death
[edit]Binzagr died on 12 September 2024, at the age of 84.[15]
References
[edit]- ^ Fareed, Saleh (12 January 2016). "South African Artist Leaves His Mark on the Streets of Balad". Saudi Gazette. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
- ^ a b "Safeya Binzagr (Biographical details)". The British Museum. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
- ^ "Artist Student's Work Selected for 55th Venice Biennale". University of Sussex. 25 November 2014. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
- ^ a b c d "Safeya Binzagr". Greenbox Dictionary of Saudi Arabian Artists. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
- ^ Naseem, Sumaiyya (20 October 2015). "13 Things You Should Know About Saudi Artist Safeya Binzagr". Destination Jeddah. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
- ^ Elgibreen 2014, p. 7.
- ^ a b Elgibreen 2014, p. 21.
- ^ Elgibreen 2014, p. 38-39.
- ^ a b c Fatany, Samar (26 January 2013). "The Saudi Art Movement Deserves More Attention". Al Arabiya News. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
- ^ a b c d Nawwab, Ni'Mah Isma'il (2001). "Painting Cultural History". Aramco World. 52 (1). Retrieved 9 May 2016.
- ^ Elgibreen 2014, p. 12.
- ^ "Darat Safeya BinZagr". Saudi Art Guide. Retrieved 9 May 2016.
- ^ Elgibreen 2014, p. 8.
- ^ Maisel, Sebastian; Shoup, John A., eds. (2009). Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab States Today: An Encyclopedia of Life in the Arab States. Vol. 1. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 158. ISBN 9780313344466.
- ^ Founder of Saudi Arabia’s fine art movement Safeya Binzagr dies at 84
Sources
[edit]- Elgibreen, Eiman (2014). Image Making: Representations of Women in the Art and Career of Safeya Binzagr from 1968 to 2000 (PDF). University of Sussex.
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Safeya Binzagr, a Saudi Artist Celebrated but Long Unseen, Dies at 84
Despite the gender restrictions of Saudi society, she claimed a place for herself, and other women, in the country’s art scene.
Mona El-Naggar, a correspondent based in Cairo, writes about culture, religion, gender and other issues across the Middle East.
The Saudi Arabian artist Safeya Binzagr’s groundbreaking moment came in 1968, when she had her debut exhibit, at a girls’ school in the coastal city of Jeddah. It was the first time a woman had shown her art publicly in the country, and the distinguished group of attendees included Saudi royals, diplomats and intellectuals.
But because women were prohibited from appearing at public events, she was unable to attend.
“I was not there physically, but I was there in spirit,” Ms. Binzagr would later say, recalling how she watched the crowd from the top floor.
It was a telling moment in her career: As a female artist, she was celebrated yet unseen, her work at the forefront of the country’s nascent art world while she remained behind the scenes. Despite the restrictions of Saudi society, though, Ms. Binzagr celebrated her heritage — advancing women’s role in Saudi Arabian art, starting classes and opening one of the first art museums in the country.
“Safeya Binzagr is one of the most consequential artists of the Arab world of the 20th century,” Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, a prominent Emirati writer and art collector, said in an interview. While “you couldn’t show photographs of women” in Saudi Arabia, he added, she realized that “you could depict them in paintings.”
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Ms. Binzagr (pronounced bin-ZAH-gur) died on Sept. 12 in Jeddah, her family said. She was 84. No additional details were provided.
In Saudi Arabia, Ms. Binzagr’s work is considered one of the earliest efforts to preserve the national heritage through art. “I love history,” she said this year in a video interview. “Why not write it with my brush?”
In her paintings depicting traditional Saudi life — daily rituals, weddings and other communal celebrations — women were the central figures, occupying spaces that were off limits to men and often overlooked in official histories.
By the 1970s, the oil boom had set off a rapid modernization that was erasing much of traditional daily life in Saudi Arabia. Ms. Binzagr traveled across the country, documenting its diverse culture and architecture, taking hundreds of photographs and collecting clothing from different regions. Some of what she found inspired her artwork, and a number of the garments she collected were displayed at a private museum she opened in 1995.
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In this as well, Ms. Binzagr was ahead of her time. It wasn’t until 2021 that the Saudi Ministry of Culture started a similar initiative to document various aspects of the country’s traditions, including poetry, music and food.
Her museum, which she called Al-Dara, or the halo, holds hundreds of paintings that she chose not to sell. It also has a library with thousands of books and a dedicated space for art education. She lived and worked in the museum, opening it by appointment to researchers, art lovers and women eager to understand how she had charted her path as a woman in Saudi Arabia.
“This archive was the rebellion,” Manal AlDowayan, a contemporary Saudi artist who is representing the country at this year’s Venice Biennale, said of Ms. Binzagr’s museum. “When I approached her, it was really one woman artist asking another, ‘How did you do it?’”
The answer, apparently, was hard work coupled with the strategic use of her family’s wealth and social standing. Ms. Binzagr carefully pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable for women in ways that did not provoke the authorities or attract undue attention from the ultrareligious.
Although her work elevated the status of women in the Saudi art world, Ms. Binzagr disliked being called a feminist, particularly because the term was associated with Western values at odds with Saudi customs and traditions. Her goal was to depict women authentically, challenging Western stereotypes of Arab and Muslim women as silent or oppressed.
Safeya Saied Binzagr was born in 1940 in Jeddah, into an affluent, well-traveled family of traders. She benefited from a broad education, studying art with a tutor in Egypt after completing her primary education. She later traveled to London, where she enrolled at Saint Martin’s School of Art.
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She did not marry — an unusual decision for a woman of her generation — as she preferred to focus on her passion for art rather than running a traditional household. Her biggest supporter was her brother Wahib Binzagr, who helped her organize exhibitions in London, Geneva and Paris in 1980.
He has since died. Ms. Binzagr is survived by three other brothers and two sisters.
One of her best-known works — a painting of a woman in an elegant traditional dress — was described by one journalist as the Saudi Mona Lisa when it was shown in Paris. The label stuck. To Ms. Binzagr, this portrait, which she repainted several times until she was satisfied with the expression, represented the strength and pride of Arab women.
Early in her career, in the late 1960s and ’70s, society in Saudi Arabia reflected traditional gender roles, but women hadn’t yet been pushed entirely out of public life, required to cover their faces and subjected to male guardianship. Even so, representational artworks, especially those depicting living people, were considered sinful.
“When I was growing up, I used to doodle characters everywhere, and when I did that, the teacher would draw a line through the neck to say it was forbidden,” Sara Alabdali, 35, an artist from Jeddah, said in an interview. “In the ’90s, there was nothing, and Safeya Binzagr was all there was for so many artists.”
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Ms. Binzagr’s work, Ms. Alabdali noted, has only gained significance in today’s Saudi Arabia, where women are allowed to drive, appear in public and express themselves artistically.
In 2019, Ms. Alabdali recalled, she held an exhibition of her own work in her great-grandfather’s home. The art drew on family stories about the house, its surroundings, the women who lived there and what they wore — tales often passed down in Saudi families but rarely recounted in public. An hour before the show was to open, an unexpected guest turned up: Ms. Binzagr, asking for a tour.
Even in her old age, Ms. Alabdali said, Ms. Binzagr remained a steadfast supporter of the generations of artists who followed her.
“We took a picture together,” she added, laughing. “But she was like, ‘Don’t share it on Instagram.’”
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