Kirsten Blach died Thursday evening in Paris, a few days before her 90th birthday. Nurse, she had married the famous Egyptian painter Hamed Abdalla with whom she had three children. Since the announcement of his death, many messages of condolence have poured in, testifying to the affection that many had for him. Kirsten Blach was not known to the general public, yet she spent her life helping others.
It all started in Denmark where she was born on October 19, 1932. At 22, Kirsten Blach obtained her nursing diploma and two years later, in 1956, she arrived in Paris where she met the man of her life, the painter Hamed Abdalla, considered by many to be the father of modern Egyptian art.
“They met on the Pont Notre-Dame and it was love at first sight. They got married right away.”tells, moved, his son filmmaker Samir Abdallah. The couple then moved to Copenhagen. There, Hamed Abdalla introduced his wife to the history of art, and together they organized several exhibitions in Denmark.
In 1966, it is the return to Paris. Kirsten Blach then worked as a nurse at Belland Hospital. A position she held until the mid-1990s.
The political situation in the Middle East is difficult. Very committed to the Palestinian cause, her husband Hamed Abdalla wrote a manifesto denouncing Israel’s impunity. The famous Parisian gallery owner Bernheim, who was exhibiting his works at the time, a fervent supporter of Israel, will end his collaboration with the Egyptian painter.
Marginalized on the Western scene, he is also marginalized in Egypt because of his criticism of the authoritarian policy of President Anouar El-Sadat. Hamed Abdalla died in 1985, not obtaining the recognition he deserved during his lifetime.
It was without counting on the abnegation of his wife who will then fight body and soul to repair this injustice. In 1985, after the death of her husband, she then devoted her life to safeguarding and promoting the works of the artist-painter.
“It is thanks to her, thanks to her tenacity that my father regained his stature as an international artist. He is known as well in London as in New York or Cairo.confirms Samir Abdallah. “She remained faithful to him until the end”still proudly insists his son.
“She was a discreet, humble, gentle and very generous woman”, hammers the editor Mina Kerfi. Highly appreciated in the militant milieu where “his house was open to all and where the welcome was always warm”says Aya Khali.
The director Khéridine Mabrouk, close to Samir Abdallah with whom he directed in 2011 the very noticed Gaza-stanza full of praise for Kristen Blach. “I often slept at her house. She was a wonderful woman. By her way of being, by her spirituality, she brought me a lot. I owe him a lot.”
Morad Montazami, author of the bookArabicecedary would like to point out that Kristen Blach was also a great art lover. “She was very familiar with the work of other Egyptian artists. I learned a lot thanks to her. She will be greatly missed.”