When Dr Basel Dalloul inherited his parents’ art collection in 2011, he was confronted with a monumental task. ‘I was born and raised in the US and while I knew quite a bit about Western art, I knew virtually nothing about Arab art. It was a daunting prospect,’ says the tech entrepreneur and founder of IT consultants, Noor Group.
Formed over the course of 55 years by Dr Ramzi Dalloul and his wife Saeda El Husseini Dalloul, the Dalloul Collection is one of the most significant assemblages of Arab modern and contemporary art in the world today, with approximately 3,000 works.
On 9 November 2023, 48 paintings, works on paper, photographs and sculptures will be offered in Marhala: Highlights from the Dalloul Collection at Christie’s in London. The auction is led by Mahmoud Saïd’s Egyptian modernist masterpiece from 1938, Fille à l’imprimé (Girl in a printed dress). Also featured are works by Dia Al-Azzawi, the Sudanese artist Ibrahim El-Salahi, the Syrian painter Marwan and the Lebanese artist and poet Etel Adnan. Mohamed Melehi, a key figure in the Casablanca Art School of post-independence Moroccan modernism, is also represented.
