28 March 2024

Sudan Mourns Death of British Artist Griselda El Tayib

Well-known British artist and former teacher Griselda Al Tayib, wife of the late prominent Sudanese writer and scholar Abdullah El Tayib, has passed away in Khartoum, Sudan at the age of 97.

She was a visual artist and cultural anthropologist, who was mainly known for her pioneering research on the traditional costumes of Sudan since the 1970s. She published her research in 2017 in the illustrated book, Regional Folk Costumes of the Sudan. In addition, she published ethnographic studies and watercolour paintings in fields such as folk literature, music, costumes and women’s education in Sudan.

Born in the UK, Griselda, MBE, has chosen Sudan as her home for more than six decades. She moved to Sudan in 1950 before the Anglo-Egyptian Colony gained independence and has lived there ever since.

She was the wife of the ‘godfather of Arabic’, Abdullah El Tayib, who was a prominent Sudanese writer and scholar of Sudanese literature and the Arabic language. Abdullah’s primary field of research was the Arabic language, and he has been considered among the most important scholars of Arabic literature and language in the 20th century. One of his most notable works is A Guide to Understanding Arabic Poetry, for which he was awarded the King Faisal Prize for Arabic Language and Literature in 2000. Born in 1921, he died in 2003 at the age of 82.

Many took to social media to mourn the death of Griselda El Tayib.

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