Alcove: Intimate Essays on Arab Modernist Artists is a compilation of articles narrated by the relatives, friends, or students of modernists from the Arab world and authored by Myrna Ayad. Some essays have been featured in Remembering the Artist, a monthly series for The National, the UAE’s leading English daily. At once an intimate portrayal and recollection, the articles celebrate the lives, careers, and personas of some of the region’s pioneering artists as told by those nearest and dearest to them.

Featuring archival material and images of artworks as well as of the artists themselves – in their studios, at exhibitions, during travels and at family or social gatherings – the essays and corresponding visuals span the decades of the 1960s through to the 1980s. In presenting an otherwise untold narrative of these artists recounted by close friends and family, the articles depict new and fascinating insights about the lives of these late greats, their agonies and ecstasies, and trials and tribulations.

Alcove: Intimate Essays on Arab Modernist Artists aims to present modernist artists from as many Arab countries as possible, and also intends on publishing future volumes.   

The origin of the word, alcove, is rooted in the Arabic, al qubba, meaning a vault or chamber. The choice to name this book Alcove: Intimate Essays on Arab Modernist Artists is rooted in two reasons: on the one hand, it pays tribute to the Arab legacy, then, and now via these prized modernists; and on the other hand, the word ‘alcove’ reflects on the preciousness of the contained essays, inviting readers into a vault of prized passages.