The Artist Who Inspired Picasso

This piece was first pubslihed in Hadara Magazine

By Anna Seaman

This year marks the tenth anniversary of Lasting Impressions, an annual event that gives a retrospective to a prominent yet under-celebrated artist and highlights their outstanding contributions to the regional art movement. For this anniversary edition, Sharjah Art Museum will host an expansive show of work by the late Algerian artist Baya Mahieddine or, more commonly, Baya. Born in 1931, Baya was orphaned at five and, because she was unable to attend school, worked in the house of a wealthy Frenchwoman, Marguerite Caminat Benhoura, who later adopted her. Benhoura, a keen art collector and a good friend of Joan Miro, noticed her talent at making figures from clay. Under Benhoura’s encouragement, Baya began to paint in her now recognisable Surrealist style that drew influence from folkloric traditions—though the artist herself rejected any form of classification. Her subjects were, invariably, women. Aged 16, Baya had her first exhibition in Paris through which she was introduced to artists such as Pablo Picasso and Andre Breton. Impressed by her spontaneity and her self-taught techniques, Picasso invited her to work with him in 1948 and his Women of Algeria series is said to be inspired by Mahieddine. Baya is truly an unsung artist and this display, curated by Alya Al-Mulla of Sharjah Art Museum and Suheyla Takesh of Barjeel Art Foundation, the largest of her work ever shown in the region, is unmissable.

Lasting Impressions: Baya Mahieddine at Sharjah Art Museum until July 31