Work featured in Skidmore review

Nine drawings by Juanita Guccione of the Ouled Nail tribe of eastern Algeria are featured in the spring issue of CELAAN, a review of the Center for the Studies of the Literature and Arts of North Africa at Skidmore College, Saratoga Spring, New York.

The Game, charcoal, circa 1933

The charcoal and pencil drawings, made in the early 1930s while the artist lived among the tribe in and around Bou Saada, are accompanied by a revealing  bio- graphical essay. Some of them were exhibited in 1935-36 at The Brooklyn Museum.

The drawings are among 174 oil and watercolor paintings and drawings owned by Sonatrach, the Algerian national oil and gas company. Algeria’s minister of energy and mines, Dr. Chakib Khelil, is personally supervising the plan to exhibit the work at Sonatrach’s headquarters in the Hydra district of Algiers. The work was shown at The Washington Arts Club in 2004 under the sponsorship of the then Algerian ambassador to the United States, Idriss Jazairy.

CELAAN is edited by Hédi Abdel-Jaouad.