Composition with Two Ovals
- Artist: Saloua Raouda Choucair
- Date: 1951
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 500 x 1850 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is “Composition with Two Ovals” by Saloua Raouda Choucair. Created in 1951, the work is an oil on canvas that stretches horizontally across a wide rectangular surface. It shows her early commitment to geometric abstraction, blending two powerful influences: the clean lines and curves of Islamic design and the dynamic experiments of Parisian avant‑garde studios in the late 1940s where she studied. The painting uses a bright palette—red, green, yellow, black and white—to set off a series of squares, polygons and interlocking ovals. These shapes move in a rhythmic dialogue, almost like a conversation of geometry that creates motion while remaining formally balanced. Though the title mentions two ovals, they disappear into a complex field of intersecting forms that seem to orbit a dark centre, giving the work a sense of motion and harmony.
See it in person
Composition with Two Ovals is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
