SARWAT EL BAHR

Sarwat El Bahr was born in 1944 and has had nearly 30 solo exhibitions in Egypt, Italy and Germany. El Bahr is also an active critic, curator and cultural commissioner.

El Bahr is an artist concerned with the concept of time. He does not abide by a singular style, as he uses whatever means necessary to express himself. He has explored many different media and styles, from pop art to Arabic calligraphy. El Bahr has used pharaonic imagery in his art, from mummies to pyramids. He has made assemblages using ancient Egyptian symbolism along with modern everyday advertisements, such as Coca-Cola, linking both past and present and pointing towards the future.

El Bahr has founded the Fekrun Wa Fann Gallery at the Goethe Institute in Alexandria, which honored him with a retrospective exhibition in 1985. He has served on several commissaries responsible for Egypt’s participation in international art surveys and festivals, helped establish Egypt’s branch of the International Association of Art Critics, and served on the Plastic Arts Committee of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Culture. El Bahr has been awarded the first prize at the 13th Biennale of Alexandria, and the 11th Arab Biennale in Kuwait.

His work is in the collections of the Mahmoud Said Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, both in Alexandria, and in the Museum of Modern Art at the Cairo Opera House, as well as in the Egyptian Embassy in Bonn, Germany and in the Museum of Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito Memorial Center in Serbia, Belgrade.