JABER (Jaber Al Mahjoub) (1938-2021) - [Sculpture,... - Lot 82 - Eric Caudron

JABER (Jaber Al Mahjoub) (1938-2021) - [Sculpture, figure]. 2004. Acrylic on plaster and resin strips. Signed and dated "2004 JABER". Height 30 x width 10 cm approximately. Condition B (traces of handling). "Jaber al-Mahjoub was born on January 5, 1938 in M'Saken, Tunisia. Orphaned at the age of three, Jaber is raised by his sister. He became a shepherd and then an apprentice baker in Sousse. Jaber arrived in France in 1956 and practiced his trade, notably in Paris where he lived from 1958 and where he had Coluche as a client. Then, one day Jaber becomes a boxer and befriends Cassius Clay. Finally, he became a comedian-singer and we can still see him exercising his talent on the esplanade of Beaubourg. Jaber al-Mahjoub left for the United States to marry a rich American woman he had met in Paris (whom he divorced two years later) and won first prize at Plainfield's Annual Festival of Art in New York in 1971. From 1976 to 1979, Jaber lived in Canada, Morocco, Egypt and Saudi Arabia before returning to Paris where he now lives in very modest conditions. Whether it is gouaches, acrylics or sculptures in plastered bands, his work is richly colored and the figures are surrounded by black. His various creations also have the particularity of being covered with heterogeneous inscriptions made of numbers and words. His creation, as well as his improvisations as a modern-day jester, include the gestuality and inventiveness drawn from his oriental origins and which remain underlying in the whole of this completely atypical career" (Musée de la Création Franche).