Tahir Bushra

I met Tahir Bushra in Asmara in 1994. He was a Sudanese Nuban, and had moved to Asmara to be able to create his art in relative freedom. When I met him, he was making the most beautiful paintings I'd ever seen. Most were on wood. Some were the size of doors; others were barely a foot square. His materials were sand, shoe polish, white house paint, oil pastel, and ballpoint pen. Some of the symbols in his paintings are derived from Nuban body painting, scarification, and house decoration (see Leni Riefenstahl's The Last of the Nuba and People of Kau for wonderful examples). Others are taken from koujour, the Nuban shamanistic healing rituals.

Tahir was a strange, taciturn, wonderful person, prone to disappearing without warning. He either sold his paintings for exorbitant prices or gave them away. He was something of a legend among the artists in Sudan, and his style was enormously influential.

I later visited him in Addis Ababa, and traveled with him and an Australian friend to the Blue Nile Falls and Gondar. I heard rumors that he went to London, and then San Francisco. Unlike many of the other Sudanese artists I met, he seems to have little web presence. With the assistance of Ray Dirks, I have gathered here the few images I could find. I'm hoping that Google might bring Tahir aficionados to this post. If anyone out there knows anything about Tahir, please let me know . . .

UPDATE

According to the comments and emails I've received after posting this, Tahir is - or was until fairly recently - living in Iowa, and is still doing art (some of which incorporates chains!). You can see some blurry pictures here. Be sure to read the beautiful poem on Tahir by Abdulmuniem Rahmat Allah, and check out commenter Gassim Abdelkader's wonderful paintings on his website.

UPDATE - May 23, 2022

According to an anonymous commenter, Tahir died on May 20, 2022, in Ottumwa, Iowa. Sad news.