Hady Boraey: Heaven's Backyard

Abdel Hadi el-­‐Gazzar Abdel Moneim Metawae Abdel Rahman al-­‐Nashar Abou Khalil Lotfy Adam H enein Adham Wanly Ahmed Abdel Wahab Effat Naghi El H ussein F awzi Emma Caly Ayad Fouad K amel Gazbia Sirry Georges Sabbagh Hamed Abdalla Hamed Nada Hassan Soliman Hidayet Hosny el-­‐Banany Hussein Bicar

Injy Efflatoun Kamal Khalifa Kamel Mostafa, Kawkab Youssef Khadiga Riaz/Riad Mahmoud Mokhtar Mahmoud Said Marguerite Nakhla Margo Veillon Mayo Mohammed Hassan Mohamed Naghi Mohammed Sabry Mounir Canaan Mounir Fahim Nahmia Saad Ragheb Ayad Refaat Ahmed Saad al-­‐Khadem Said el-­‐Adawy

FROM

MOKHTAR TO

GAZBIA

OPENING RECEPTION December 3, 2019 EXHIBITION 03 - 12 - 2019 3 1 - 12 - 2019

The ‘Other’ showed up in Alexandria on July 2, 1798, in the guise of an opportunistic, idealistic 29-year-old French general. When Napoléon Bonaparte landed with 38,000 soldiers and 167 savants, the shock was cultural as much as it was military.

Following the French military defeat in 1801, Muhammad Ali (r. 1805-1848), an ambitious Albanian commander in the Ottoman army, originally sent to fight the French, quickly filled the power vacuum to create his own empire.

Considered the founder of modern Egypt, the self-declared khedive and his spendthrift dynasty would rule Egypt for the next 150 years and undertake a vast program of modernization, educational reforms and industrialization, arguably preparing the ground for al-Nahda (cultural renaissance).

By the end of the 19th century, an artistic circle, initiated by a group of Europeans living in Egypt and under the patronage of the khedive, were organizing a yearly Exposition du Caire.

At the turn of the twentieth-century and with ten thousand pounds, twenty-six year old member of the royal family Prince Youssef Kamal (1882-1966) would open the free of charge Egyptian School of Fine Arts (Madrassa al-Funun al-Jamila al-Misriyya) to promote the arts and immortalize his name.

An avid oriental antiquities and Islamic works of art collector, Kamal believed in opening the door to local talents and sought to disprove that Egyptians were indifferent to or incapable of appreciating arts or shied away for religious reasons.

The year 1911 would witness the first exhibition of the first graduating class at the Cairo Automobile Club. Among them were some of today’s most recognized names, including sculptor Mahmoud Mokhtar and painters Youssef Kamel, Mohammed Hassan and Ragheb Ayad. Ibn al-Balad, a gypsum-made sculpture of a joyful boy by Mahmoud Mokhtar, received great reviews and was the only work sold in 8 editions. Ever since, it is said that Mokhtar proudly and rightly claimed to be the first Egyptian sculptor in Egypt in over 1700 years.

By the late 1960s / early 1970s, the figurative world of Gazbia Sirry (1925) began to fade away, and a world of abstraction slowly took over. With the same power, love for her homeland and mastery of color, Gazbia spoke about and to the people of Egypt to craft a certain non-figurative spontaneity at the forefront of modernism to aptly express the complexities of the country and the dire conditions of its people.

In-between the two artists and those years is a fascinating story of Egyptian modernism, whose artist-heroes are either celebrated and sought-after today, or forgotten and lost in the gaps of history.

From Mokhtar to Gazbia looks at how some of the twentieth-century native Egyptian artists engaged with issues of nation-state, nostalgia, and tradition, while others faded the borders between narration and the human condition; how some chose to remain loyal to the traditional Western school of classicism, while others vouched to create an authentic and distinct visual language based on a variety of styles and aesthetics.

From Mokhtar to Gazbia features over seventy artworks by 48 artists, handpicked and sourced from different private Egyptian collections, to narrate the story of the emergence and evolution of modern Egyptian art, as they seek a new home.

Whether you are a serious collector, a Fine Arts student, a historian, an artist, or simply an art lover, do take the time to visit the one-month exhibition, and do not forget to put on your twentieth-century hat.

Ibn-al-Balad in exhibition of first Graduating Class of École Égyptienne des Beaux-Arts in 1911.

MOHAMMED HASSAN (1892-1961) Caricature of Ahmed Fahmy Qattan Bey (Controller of Fine Arts at Minister of Public Instruction) during his visit to the first State-sponsored art scholarship studies in Rome, 1926 al-Musawar cover, 13 August 1926, shows front row: el-Qattan Bey, Diplomat Sadek Henein Pasha, Dean of School Camillo Innocenti, second row: Artists Mohammed Hassan, Youssef Kamel and Ragheb Ayad in Rome.

Watercolor on paper50 x 70 cm Signed and dated lower right

MAHMOUD MOKHTAR (1891-1934) Ibn al-Balad 1911 – molded 1970s in Egypt Recognized as the first sculpture “in over 1700 years” as Mokhtar is quoted as saying ‘There had been no sculptor in Egypt in over 1700 years.’

Bronze56 x 20 x 26 cm Signed M. Mouktar

MARGUERITE NAKHLA (1908-1977) Les arbres aux feuilles oranges Oil on canvas75 x 65 cm Signed lower left

SAYED ABDEL RASSOUL (1917-1995) Untitled (Fellahat), 1986 Oil on wood board 40 x 56 cm Signed lower right

INJY EFFLATOUN (1924-1989) Untitled, 1986 | Oil on wood 60 x 45 cm Signed and dated lower right

HAMED NADA (1924-1990) Untitled, 1987 | Oil on canvas 50 x 60 cm Signed and dated lower center

ABDEL RAHMAN EL NASHAR (1923-1999) Untitled, 1997 | Oil on wood | 50 x 50 cm

Signed and dated in Arabic and English lower right

ZAKARIA EL-ZEINI (1932-1993) Untitled | Oil on canvas 102 x 83 cm | Signed

SALAH TAHER (1911-2007) al-Salam / Peace, 1978 Oil on wood125 x 185 cm Signed and dated In Arabic bottom right Cover of October Magazine No. 5106, 1978

SAAD AL-KHADEM (1913-1987) Reclining Nude on Sofa, 1943

RAGHEB AYAD (1882-1982) (Fellah), 1944

Signed and dated top left Oil on canvas 38 x 60 cm

Oil on canvas 90 x 70 cm Signed R. Ayad and dated lower right

YOUSSEF SIDA (1922-1994) 19-5-1971 Oil on canvas70 x 80 cm Signed and dated lower center

ABOU KHALIL LOTFY (1920-1993) Untitled, 1986 Oil on canvas 75 x 75 cm Signed and dated

FROM

MOKHTAR TO

GAZBIA Catalogue Published on the occasion of the show FROM MOKHTAR TO GAZBIA 03 December, 2019 ArtTalks | Egypt COORDINATORS Cherine Chafik Engy El-Bouliny Wael Seif El Nasr TEXT Fatenn Mostafa GRAPHIC CONCEPT & REALIZATION Engy El-Bouliny

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