The Collection

Salah Elmur is a Sudanese painter, graphic designer, filmmaker, and author whose work bridges visual art, literature, and cinema. Drawing on memories of his childhood near the Blue Nile and the legacy of his father’s photography studio, Elmur creates paintings that evoke the atmosphere of mid-20th-century Sudanese portraiture. His vividly colored, dreamlike compositions often center on family, ritual, and everyday life, presenting an imaginative yet deeply rooted vision of Sudanese cultural identity.

Educated in graphic design at the College of Fine and Applied Arts, Sudan University (1989), Elmur has exhibited widely across Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. His paintings are held in international museum collections including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Minneapolis Institute of Art; the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA), Cape Town; the Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE; the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), Marrakech; and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.

Alongside his painting practice, Elmur has written and illustrated children’s books published in multiple languages, and directed six short films that blend documentary and fantasia. His film Heaven’s Bird won the Jury Prize at the 2010 “Images that Matter” International Short Film Festival in Ethiopia.

Rooted in Sudanese heritage yet enriched by global dialogues, Elmur’s multidisciplinary practice contributes to a contemporary reimagining of African and Arab modernism, where personal memory and collective history converge in layered, poetic forms.