Taheya Halim was an artist who began her arts education as a student of the Syrian artist Youssef Taraboulsi. In 1943, she began working as an apprentice in the studio of the artist Hamed Abdallah. Halim traveled to Paris in 1949 to study painting formally at the Académie Julian, after which she returned to Egypt in 1951 and continued to work in Cairo. As an artist, Taheya Halim had a strong interest in Egyptian folk culture. She made frequent trips to the countryside in Upper Egypt and her paintings reflected Egyptian folk traditions. In 1958, Taheya Halim was granted a Guggenheim award for a work entitled Pieta.