Tahia Halim

Tahia Halim’s 96th Birthday

Today's doodle celebrates the 96th birthday of Egyptian painter, Tahia Halim, who passed away in 2003. Halim was born in 1919, and grew up inside the Egyptian Royal Palace of King Faoud. As a young girl she fell in love with painting, and paused her formal education in order to study with master painters in Egypt and France. 

Halim painted many of her best known pieces in the 1960s, which depict the Nubian people of and culture of the Nile in Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan. She was first sent there to document the process of building the Aswan High Dam on the Nile, which flooded much of Nuba and forced the relocation of over 100,000 Nubians. She was fascinated by the Nubian women and scenes of old Nuba. She tried to capture much of that world in her paintings and drawings before it was changed irrecoverably by the new dam and resulting Nasser Lake.

Many paintings since that trip depict the Nile, boats, and Nubian village people—especially local women—going about their daily work. Figures and gestures are reduced to simple, evocative forms that encapsulate the beauty and vibrancy of the Southern Nile. Despite the poverty she found in Nuba, Halim's work reflects the rich colors and authenticity of the Nubian people, their architecture and their daily life. Her folkloric impressionist style and signature brush strokes during that period captured the unique and intangible characteristics of the Egyptian people, and honored the ancient Egyptian spirit that is still living within people in Nuba.