Obituary: Mona Saudi (1945–2022)

Veteran abstract artist Mona Saudi died in Beirut on February 16 at the age of 76. Known for her sculptures in a wide range of stones, Saudi exhibited widely across the region from Beirut to Amman, as well as in France and the United Kingdom, across more than five decades of her practice. In 2018, the Sharjah Art Foundation and the Sharjah Art Museum held a major survey of her work, “Poetry and Form,” curated by Hoor Al Qasimi and Noora Al Mualla.

Born in 1945 in Amman, Saudi left home for Beirut at the age of 17. Inspired by themes of creation (takween, in Arabic) she created her first sculpture in stone in 1965, titled Mother/Earth, and throughout her career rendered elements of the human form using elemental geometric shapes. She then went to study at École Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, graduating in 1973. Driven by an independent spirit, she defied many of the social conventions of the time by striking out on her own career path. In a 2018 interview with The National newspaper in Dubai, she explained, “Nobody supported me. I just decided to make my life by myself, so I abolished all kinds of obstacles: family, society, et cetera.”

Her sculptural works referenced the long history of stone carving and monumental architecture of the region, particularly from the Nabataean, Sumerian, and Egyptian civilizations. Over the years she worked with many stones from the region including pink limestone, green marble, Lebanese yellow stone, Jordanian jade, and black diorite. Her drawings, paintings, and sculptures were also greatly inspired by works of the poets Mahmoud Darwish and Adonis. Her large-scale sculpture Géométrie de l’esprit [Geometry of the Spirit] (1987), carved in large slabs of white marble, is located outside the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.

In 1995, Darat al Funun in Amman held a retrospective of her works, and The Mosaic Rooms in London presented her first UK solo in 2010. Her works belong to the collection of numerous museums and institutions including: the Sursock Museum (Beirut); the Sharjah Art Foundation; the Barjeel Art Foundation (Sharjah); The British Museum (London); the Institut du Monde Arabe (Paris), the National Museum for Women in the Arts (Washington, DC); as well as national museums in Kuwait, Jordan, and private corporate collections around the region. Speaking of her own works in a 2015 interview for Art Dubai, she said: “Always I live between my sculptures, I enjoy them, I am never fed up of seeing them because they are my beloved ones.”

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