Aldine - The Deluge - 1969

Aldine (Franco-Egyptian Painter)

The Deluge

• Medium: Oil on canvas

• Dimensions: 114 × 146 cm (stretcher)

• Signed: By the artist on both front and back

• Date: 1969

This monumental work, entitled The Deluge, demonstrates Aldine’s expressive power. Through dynamic brushwork and layered textures, the painter evokes a world in motion, balancing chaos and renewal. The palette, dominated by deep blues, blacks, and browns, is contrasted with golden highlights, reminiscent of a stormy sky. The energy of the lines and forms conveys the devastation of the elements while hinting at the possibility of calm and light.

At the intersection of abstraction and cosmic evocation, this painting illustrates the intensity of Aldine’s artistic approach, where the cultural memory of his origins meets his contemporary sensibility.

Franco-Egyptian Painter and Sculptor

Born in Cairo in 1917, Abdellatif Ala El Din, known as Aldine, is a distinctive figure of the Second School of Paris. Initially trained in physical and chemical sciences at the Sorbonne, he pursued a scientific career before a decisive encounter in the mid-1940s with the art critic Michel Ragon encouraged him to fully dedicate himself to painting and the visual arts.

Settling in France from 1953, he successively held positions as Cultural Attaché at the Egyptian Embassy in Paris and then as Director of the Education Bureau and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO. By the late 1950s, he definitively chose an artistic path, establishing his studio in Montparnasse.

Both a painter and sculptor, Aldine quickly gained recognition with powerful works such as The Man of Hiroshima, exhibited widely in France and abroad. His artistic journey long oscillated between figuration and abstraction before evolving toward an almost exclusively abstract expression. His canvases, with evocative titles such as The Crucified and The Templars, reflect a spiritual and mystical quest. His pictorial language is characterized by broad brushstrokes, curvilinear contours, and exploration of large thematic cycles: the Nebulae, the Stelae, and the Whirlwinds.

Aldine’s works are now held in major public and private collections, including the Centre Pompidou (Beaubourg), the Musée National d’Art Moderne (MNAM), the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lille, and the Aga Khan Collection.