Alphabet was owned by Ibrahim up until the early sixties and was exhibited at this solo exhibition at Gallery Lambert in Paris in 1962.

It was purchased by Toby Clarke in 2016 from Guillaume Van Mierlo whose parents were expats in Sudan in the early sixties.

The work references Ibrahim El-Salahi’s first day at School. The story goes that he was with his father when they chose this painting and he as a young boy was mesmerised by it. The father had wanted to commission Ibrahim to do a portrait of his wife but Ibrahim told him that he would only do the commission if he bought a real work of art from him. That work was Alphabet, a painting about Ibrahim’s first day at school painted pre 1962 in 1960 and likely sold by Ibrahim in 1963. In the painting, according to Guillaume, Ibrahim explained to them that it was about his first day at school and the narrative starts in the top right corner of the painting and the story is relayed anti clockwise. First he wakes up and walks to school, passing decorative murals. He then has fish to eat, plays board games*, learns about the human body, has a rest, and then the next image is of his teacher, and finally night time at the end of the day on the bottom right hand corner.

*In the videos we have from the time, Guillaume explains the board game the Sudanese used to play which is illustrated by black and white squares.

There is a video to hand.

The Metropolitan Museum own Alphabet 2 the only other canvas in this small series. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/702950