Tahia Halim was from an aristocratic Egyptian family. Halim’s name is closely associated with Nubia. In 1962, she was commissioned by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture to document the region of Upper Egypt that spreads to the north of Sudan. As a result of the Aswan High Dam’s construction (1960–1970), many Nubian villages disappeared under the Nile’s waters, the populations forced to migrate. Three Nubians features three women seated in a hilly landscape. The central figure carries a palm leaf, a recurring motif in Halim’s Nubian paintings, particularly in wedding scenes such as The Wedding Ceremony in Nubia (1964). The stylised faces and silhouettes of the frontal figures lend a timeless dimension to the scene. Halim presents an image of a culture with ancient and African roots. In the background, mosque domes standing alongside traditional mud- brick houses evoke the Islamisation of Nubia, originally a Christian region, reflecting a centuries-old history of its assimilation and discrimination by Egypt. Works by Halim were exhibited in the Egyptian Pavilion at Biennale Arte in 1956, 1960, and 1970.
—Nadine Atallah
