Safeya Binzagr popular Saudi Arabian painter and museum proprietor died
on ninth Baisakh 2071 BS or on September 12, 2024 at the age of 84 years.
Saudia Arabia’s most prized possession in artistic circles, Binzagr engrossed
herself in portraying Saudi Arabia’s cultural values and producing art work
that was true to form. There was no other woman artist in the kingdom who
founded her own museum Darat Safeya Binzagr opened in 2000 in Jeddah.
Binzagr born in 1940 started practicing art in the sixties. In 1968 she
had her first exhibition, and in 1970 the lady became the first Saudi woman to
have her solo exhibition. Nevertheless, due to pressure of cultural traditions,
she could not attend the openings of her own exhibitions. However, it was only
when in 1976 Aramco invited her personally to take part in a private show of
her paintings she was able to attend it which in its turn became a major step
forward in her work.
Many of the initial Binzagr’s exhibitions were important not only from an
aesthetic point of view but from the cultural perspective as well because they
cast a stone at the time Saudi Arabia’s gender regime. She was the pioneer of
young Saudi women who wanted to be involved in arts in future.
That is why Safeya Binzagr’s work was based on the traditions of Saudi
Arabia. Her works mainly depicted the life, customs and the scenes from the
history of the Hejaz. She ensured that she gathered information of each piece
by taking photographs, conducting research in official records and archives as
well as interviewing older Saudi women to ensure she brought out the lost lore
of old Saudi Arabia. Some of the topics she used in her work include marriage
customs, traditional costumes and old Saudi homes among others. As such, she
was able to contribute significantly toward the Saudi culture’s documentation
and promotion since many of these traditions would have otherwise been easily
forgotten.
As for
Binzagr, she started to plan about own gallery that will be a home for her art
and the representant of Saudi Arabia in the contemporary world. After 8 years
of planning and renovation she inaugurated Darat Safeya Binzagr in the year
2000. The newly designed building is a museum for her sculptures and is in
Jeddah and also her workplace as well as a home for her and her family. As it
was open to the public, the museum attracted art lovers, historians as well as
cultural enthusiasts. It arranged several different art galas and art fairs,
open to the public to foster the arts in Saudi Arabia and cultivate those with
the passion for beautifying the country.
Ending her
art marketing in 1973, focused more on ethnical and cultural values rather than
the business across the globe. The management can also learn that he perceived
her work as a public service rather than a business, where she is more
concerned with passing across her vision and ideas than making a profit out of
it.
Her
achievements are not only in art, but she was a pioneer of women coming to the
Saudi art scene, and a keeper of her nation’s heritage and values. Her
paintings, done in oils, watercolors, pastels and drawings, as well as her
prints in etching are articles of immense cultural significance, to preserving
which she made immense contribution and she continues to provoke succeeding
generations. Their museum is still standing as a testimony towards her
unfulfilled lifetime goal of promoting and preserving the Saudi Arabia cultural
products.
Binzagr
will be remembered for the work she made in the arts scene while inspiring and
balancing the tradition of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia through art.
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