Fateh Moudarres (Syrian, 1922-1999)

Fateh Moudarres was not only a full time painter, he was also a poet and a published writer. He had studied mythology which often inspired his paintings and was deeply immersed in the history of the region. He invented stories and gave them unusual titles, such as in the present lot, The Village Magician and His Donkey. From his early childhood in the Northern villages of Syria, Moudarres was searching for magic which he found in the sand, the wind and the infinite landscapes which surrounded him. Later on, at a time when Moudarres settled in the city, he turned towards painting urban scenes as one can see in the background of the present work.

As a hint to his childhood memories, the artist often used sand which he mixed with colours and glue in order to reach an almost magical effect. In the present painting, Moudarres tells the story of a magician who visited an abandoned village with his donkey. The story he painted brought many twinkles in the artist's eye and reminisced his wishes as a young boy.

By the 1960s, following his travels to Europe, Fateh Moudarres had been exposed to the work of Marc Chagall (1887 -1985). In The Village Magician and His Donkey, the composition alludes to happiness, dream and compassion which resonates the work of the Russian French artist. Moudarres shared with him the gift of joyful, intense memories and an easy approach to storytelling. Even in the depiction of the most serious subjects, this style prevented Moudarres from dramatizing the scene, hence his painting became a work imbued with optimism in appearance yet alluding to the underlying political turmoil of his time. Perhaps The Village Magician and His Donkey are flying away from the harsh reality.