This artwork is the result of a collaboration between Anna Kwiecinska and Rajesh Soni, and is the signature image for the Thar to Sahara 2022 overland journey inspired by ‘The Sheltering Sky’, a work of fiction by American Author, Paul Bowles.

Bowles’ 1949 novel addressed some of the great existential questions that from time to time, cause us all to ponder…

" Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well, yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How any more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20, and yet it all seems limitless "

Poignantly prophetic, this soliloquy occurs beneath the vast dome of darkness that stretches from horizon to horizon in the Sahara Desert, where his protagonists come face to face with themselves.

As the symbol of a destination, it’s a story which has driven me to the Sahara on several occasions over some 30 years. Most recently, on a 12-day walking journey between two traditional entry points from the south and east.¹
(see travel blog www.annakwiecinska.com)

With this artwork, Rajesh Soni, the gifted heir to a family tradition of miniature painting in Udaipur, has drawn together the termini of our journey – from the Pink City of Jaipur to the red city of Marrakech.

His nuanced lifting of photographic monotones brings our scene to life, and paradoxically sets it into another time all at once. Elements from past and present meet one another within the charmed space that only art can create.

As court photographer to Maharajah Shree Bhopal Singh Ji, Soni’s grandfather, Prabhulal Verma, hand-coloured the photographs he made of the last ruler of Udaipur’s family, bringing the jewel- bright tones of his former work as a jeweller to enliven and enrich the portraits which can still be seen in the Udaipur Royal Collection.

In this artwork, the date palm vignette is from an extended journey with camels Anna made in Morocco, near dunes close to the Algerian border.²

Rajesh has placed it within a Jaipuri haveli, together with images of the travel-worn leather suitcases that belonged to Paul Bowles, which can be found in a small memorial collection within the Tangier American Foundation Museum.

We hope that the Mahindra Thar vehicle will transport us back to Tangier, from Jaipur, in 2022.
In life, as in art, perhaps.