T-Marbouta

‫ت مربوطة‬ ‫‪March 2021‬‬

‫ت مربوطة‬ Amelia Da Forno Casonato Amy Nimr Attiyat Farag Cléa Badaro Effat Naghi Ehsan Mokhtar Eliz Partam Emma Caly-Ayad Gazbia Sirry Inji Efflatoun Kawkab Youssef Al-Assal

Exhibition

9 March - 2 April 2021

Khadiga Riaz Leila Izzet

Margo Veillon Marguerite Nakhla Mariam Abdel-Aleem Mary Artenian Menhat Helmy Naïma el-Shishiny Suzy Green Tahia Halim Vessela Farid Zenab Abd El Hamid Zeinab Abdou Zeinab Al Sageny Zohra Efflatoun

‫ت مربوطة‬

By Fatenn Mosta fa Ka na fa ni T-Marbouta – The Arabic Letter that Ties Women Artists to History T-Marbouta is the Arabic letter to specify a feminine noun. It also means tied, connected, attached.

T-Marbouta is a nod to 25 extraordinary women artists who defied conventions, pioneered art movements, fought for justice and women’s rights, and in the process, spoke on behalf of a nation.

Most of these women lived through a time of great change – the 1919 Revolution for a few, the long struggle for independence from British colonialism, World War II, the 1952 military Revolution, and for some, the 2011 Arab Spring. This was a time when women’s role in society was also changing. Some were also writers, teachers, political activists, suffragettes, revolutionaries, poets and patriots. All were devoted to art. Forward-thinkers with an unshakable tenacity, they responded to the Nahda and helped redefine the national collective identity in a Muslim-majority severely gendered society under Western colonial rule.

Unlike Western peripheries, the canon of Egyptian art history never omits women.

Egyptian female artists have been both present and accepted on equal terms with male artists without discrimination. Amy Nimr and Margo Veillon were both included with oil paintings in the first catalogue published by the Museum of Modern Art in 1931, side by side three native male artists, Georges Sabbagh (1877-1951), Mahmoud bey Saïd (1897-1964) and Ahmed Sabry

(1889-1955). In all editions of the various art salons held in Cairo and Alexandria or in exhibitions held abroad to represent Egypt such as the prestigious Venice Biennale, women artists were well represented, consistently filling in at least a third, at times half, of the invited artists. In his authoritative book, La Peinture Moderne en Égypte, the renowned art critic and university professor Aimé Azar has equally covered the contribution of Egyptian women artists. A number of women artists, such as Marguerite Nakhla, Effat Naghi, Tahia Halim, Inji Efflatoun, Gazbia Sirry and Zenab Abd El Hamid ultimately gained prominence that far surpassed their male colleagues using a variety of pioneering stylistic aesthetics to offer social commentaries. Worthy to note that without exception, they all traveled abroad to pursue formal art studies.

Although many left Egypt in the mid-1950s, their artistic legacy needs to be revived, documented and remembered. T-Marbouta is a timely tribute to celebrate their legacy and give them the recognition they deserve. Sought-after or forgotten, each one, in her way, helped shape Egypt’s twentieth-century art in Egypt. Native Egyptian, Syro-Lebanese, Italian, Armenian, Swiss or Belgian, they all had one thing in common besides Egypt: They were bold pioneers.

In our efforts dedicated to illuminating the role of female artists and patrons who have contributed to the history of modern art in Egypt, we continue our quest to provide a more complete story of Egypt.

Amelia Da Forno Casonato (1878-1969) The Venetian born Amelia Da Forno Casonato was a still-life painter and instructor. In 1902, she fled Italy with her lover and future husband Diego and settled in Alexandria.

Besides exhibiting in the yearly salons in Cairo and Alexandria, Amelia opened a private studio to teach art in Alexandria. Her most famous student was Egypt’s most celebrated first-generation modernist painter Mahmoud Saïd (1897-1964), who took private lessons at her studio when he was a teenager. Beside her art school, Da Forno Casonato was commissioned to decorate some of the palaces of King Fouad I. She left Egypt in 1954.

30 x 40 cm Oil on wood Signed lower right

Amelia Da Forno Casonato | 53 x 36 cm | Oil on canvas | Signed lower left

Amelia Da Forno Casonato | 63 x 47 cm | Watercolor on paper | Signed lower left

Amelia Da Forno Casonato | 63 x 47 cm | Watercolor on paper | Signed lower left

Amelia Da Forno Casonato | 34 x 44 cm | Oil on wood | Signed lower left

Amelia Da Forno Casonato | 38 x 47 cm | Ink on paper | Signed lower right

Amy Nimr ( 1 8 9 8 - 1 9 74 )

Also known as Amy Smart (by marriage), Nimr is an Egyptian-born artist, writer and patron of the arts. She was the first Egyptian artist and Egyptian woman to graduate from the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art in London in 1920.

In Europe, Nimr’s artistic career took off. She first exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in Paris in 1925 and had her first solo exhibition at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery a year later in 1926. Her fame in Egypt was facilitated by several public exhibitions at the annual Salon du Caire beginning in the early 1930s.

Many of her early paintings consist of portraits of Nubians and Bedouins from when she visited Upper Egypt and nude portraits of women from Nubia, Sudan, and Sub-Saharan Africa. She also painted still life, religious scenes and images of Egypt’s Jewish community. Following the tragic death of her only son, her paintings are described as her most surrealist and dark phase.

After the Egyptian Revolution in 1952, Nimr and her British diplomat husband were forced to leave Egypt. She settled in Paris where she would remain for the rest of her life. Her last known exhibition was held at the Galerie de Marignan in Paris in 1961. On 24 January 1974, she died in Paris.

Amy Nimr | 20 x 25 cm | Ink on paper | Signed and dated 1932 Lower right

Cléa Badaro (1913 – 1968)

Born in Cairo, Badaro attended school in Montreux then enrolled at the Académie des Beaux Arts in Lausanne. There, she designed a number of posters, one of which she sold to Josephine Baker who was on tour in Switzerland at the time. In her final year, she was awarded the Grand Prix for her poster entitled L’Égypte, which was later acquired by the Egyptian Ministry of Communications.

Badaro graduated in about 1934.

Badaro returned to Egypt after graduation and settled in Alexandria. During the war years, she worked in the hospitals and canteens frequented by soldiers returning from battle in the northern desert. During that time, she painted scenes of sailors, bars, and soldiers in cabarets. She established a studio in the Atelier of Alexandria. Badaro painted many Bedouin women and the Egyptian fellaha, portraying their graceful gestures, proud deportment, and flowing clothes. She also painted mother and child portraits and nudes.

Badaro was introduced to the British novelist Lawrence Durrell, who was posted in Alexandria during the war as press attaché for the British Foreign Office. Later, he would later portray her as the character “Clea” in his trilogy: The Alexandrian Quartet. Badaro died in Egypt in 1968.

CLÉA BADARO | 67 x 47 cm | Oil on canvas | Signed lower left

Effat Naghi (1905-1994)

The younger sister of the pioneer modernist painter Mohamed Nghi (1888-1956), the Alexandria-born Effat Naghi (or Nagy) began her formal training with a private tutor in Alexandria. Later, she pursued higher studies in the art of fresco in Florence, before graduation from Rome’s Academia di Belle Arti in 1947.

A remarkable and progressive artist, Effat’s body of work is inspired by magic, Egyptian archaeological and folk artefacts and popular culture, which appear in her assemblages and mixed media pieces.

Integrating a variety of materials such as crocodile skins, antique painted wood, and magic amulets, Nagy produced densely textured pieces that speak to a primitivist aesthetic rooted in Egypt. By the time she matured as an artist, Effat had “surpassed” her brother Mohamed, seventeen years her senior.

In 2001, an eponymous museum dedicated to the work of Effat Nagy and her husband, Saad al-Khadem, a fellow artist and researcher of popular myths, opened in Cairo.

Effat Naghi |34 X 18 cm Acrylic on wood Signed lower left

Effat Naghi |34 X 18 cm Acrylic on rice paper Signed lower right

Effat Nagui | 36 x 26 cm | Watercolor on paper | Signed

Effat Nagui | 37 x 27 cm | Mixed media on wood | Signed

Effat Nagui | 36 x 23 cm Oil on cardboard | Signed

Effat Nagui | 67 x 90 cm Oil on cardboard | Signed

Effat Nagui | 67 x 90 cm | Oil on wood | Signed

Effat Nagui | 17 x 24 cm Oil pastel on paper Signed

Eliz Partam (1930-2007)

Born in Cairo, Partam became one of the private disciples of the celebrated Armenian-Egyptian modernist painter, Ashod Zorian until 1951. In 1966, Eliz obtained a diploma from “Cours ABC” in Paris, and the next year, she participated in the annual Salon Du Caire.

Yet her real beginning was in 1968. Most of her early works were portraits, scenes and vases with flowers, which were on the traditional line of A. Zorian.

She gradually introduced new themes especially reflecting women issues like Mother and child and Maternity. Technically, her style surpassing the stylized realism of her master approached Fauvism and Expressionism. Her lines became stronger, her compositions became more balanced and she boldly used the Impasto technique to cover the surfaces of her works. That is why her works are easily identified today by an expert eye.

Eliz Partam | 57 x 45 cm | Oil on wood | Signed lower right

Eliz Partam | 57 x 49 cm | Oil on canvas | Signed lower right

Eliz Partam | 75 x 60 cm | Oil on canvas | Signed lower right

Emma Caly-Ayad (1897 - 1989)

Parallel to her teaching duties, Emma painted prolifically throughout her life.

Aspired by Egypt, but more so, by Ragheb, she produced works tackling a variety of subjects, from the fellaha, the countryside, portraits and nature morte. The duo’s synchronized creativity influenced each other’s colorful styles and resulted in decades of collaborations that explored themes of popular life and Christian iconography. It culminated in the late 1950s when both artists were commissioned by the new St. Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church in Zamalek, designed by the famous Egyptian architect Ramses Wisssa Wassef, to paint inside the church.

Ragheb was commissioned to write icons, such as St. Shenout and St. Mena, while Emma painted three frescoes situated above the altars.

Emma Caly and Ragheb Ayad first crossed path as students at the Superior Institute of Fine Arts in Rome around 1927. This was the beginning of a partnership that lasted over half a century, until Ayad’s death in 1982. A native of Rome, Emma Caly studied painting first at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Torino, before enrolling at the Superior Institute of Fine Arts in Rome. Two years after Ayad’s return to Egypt, Emma followed. She relocated in Cairo and the two tied the knot in 1930.

Ever since, she came to be known as Emma Caly-Ayad.

Emma began her career as an art instructor at the newly established Higher Institute of Fine. Arts for Women Teachers in 1938-39 in Cairo. For many aspiring women artists, the institute was the only accessible alternative to formally study art since the Egyptian School of Fine Arts was still restricted to males only. Free of charge, it was also an appealing substitute to studying in the costly private studios of foreign artists, or traveling abroad. Emma Caly worked under the inspection of the prominent art instructor Habib Gorgi, and was amongst the instructors who taught to several future graduates such as Zenab Abdel Hamid (1945) and Gazbia Sirry (1949).

Emma Caly-Ayad Ragheb’s Portrait after receiving an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Jihan and Anwar al-Sadat 1980 Oil on canvas 115 x 83 cm Signed and dated bottom right

Emma Caly Ayad | Les Filles de Flamenco | Oil on canvas | 36 x 53 cm

Emma Caly Ayad | Le Village | Mixed media on paper | 60 x 44 cm

Emma Caly Ayad | Des Raisins et un oiseau | Oil on wood | 83 x 38 cm

Emma Caly Ayad | Des fruits à la fenètre, 1971 | Oil on canvas | 72 x 76 cm

Emma Caly Ayad | Self-Portrait III , 1955| Oil on canvas | 50 x 43 cm

Emma Caly Ayad | Self-Portrait II , 1960 | Oil on canvas | 45 x 35 cm

Gazbia Sirry (1925) Gazibbiyah, an Arabic word for charisma, magnetism, gravity, and force of attraction, encompasses many of the traits that define the extraordinary woman who is aptly named Gazbia Sirry. Born into a landowning family from the Egyptian aristocracy in 1925, Gazbia Sirry is authentically Egyptian, effortlessly timeless. “If I were not Egyptian, I would have wished to be one.”

The words of the anti-colonial nationalist leader Mostafa Kamel Pasha at the turn of the twentieth century epitomize feelings of pride, dignity, and self-determination. But how does one become Egyptian? Gazbia offers the answer.

Never a purely aesthetic pursuit, the search for the Egyptian essence is Sirry’s maelstrom and she used it to create a singular signature style to evoke calculated political activism: local in insight yet universal in scope; rooted in the ordinary yet most sophisticated in kind.

A graduate of Cairo’s Higher Institute of Fine Arts for Women Teachers in 1948, Sirry built one of the most influential careers in twentieth-century modern Arab art. Sirry took as her starting point the intimate life of her people. Responding to the convergence of socio-political factors, she navigated effortlessly, and her work culminated into an extraordinary Arab Fresca. Never standing still and unlike most of her contemporaries who were loyal to one school of thought, Sirry never shied away from radical transformation. With little warning, she moved from one stage to the other, away from representational to abstract art, but always allowed space for social commentary.

Gazbia Sirry | Le lieu et le temps Series, 1977 75 x 100 cm | Oil on canvas Signed and dated 1977 mid-right

Gazbia Sirry | 60 x 73 cm | Oil on canvas | Signed and dated 1973

Gazbia Sirry | 45 x 100 cm | Oil on wood | Signed and dated 1955

Gazbia Sirry | Marsa Matruh | 40 x 30 cm | Watercolor on paper | Signed

Gazbia Sirry | 40 x 30 cm | Watercolor on paper | Signed

Gazbia Sirry | 40 x 30 cm | Watercolor on paper | Signed

Gazbia Sirry 40 x 30 cm Oil on canvas Signed and dated 1994

Inji Efflatoun (1924-1989)

the studio of Hamed Abdalla and Tahia Halim. Unable to join the Egyptian School of Fine Arts since it was still restricted to males only, Efflatoun enrolled in the Free Section [Dirassat Hurra] instead.

A longtime member of one of two prominent underground communist organisations and a co-founder of the Union for Egyptian Female University Students, Efflatoun lived a life of hurdles, clandestinity, hiding, loss, threats, and eventually, imprisonment (1959-1964). As such, she became the first female artist to be imprisoned in Egypt.

A painter, a political activist, a feminist, a prisoner, an author, an aristocrat, a communist, a wife, daughter, sister, and aunt, Inji Efflatoun was a multitude of personalities.

Determined, forward-thinking and courageous, Inji Efflatoun dedicated her life to Egypt and its modest and unpretentious people. She sacrificed her privileged circumstances and went to extremes to deliver on her mission. As one who led a double life both as an avant-garde painter and a radical political activist rising from the Egyptian aristocracy, Efflatoun made use of the two hats and in the process, created a ‘holy link’ between society and art, to provide a rich and timeless social commentary and bring women’s struggles to the afore. Depicting them in great length in her art or speaking on their behalf in various congresses around the world, Efflatoun also published three books where she voiced her call to annihilate reactionaryism, patriarchy and colonialism.

Born in Shobra in 1924 to a family of large landowners, Efflatoun was heralded as the biggest surprise in 1942 when she took part at the age of eighteen in the third exhibition of Independent Art held at the Continental Hotel in Cairo organized by the surrealist collective known as al-Fann wa-l-Hurriyya. In 1948, she joined the studio of the Swiss painter and Cairo resident Margo Veillon, and later moved to

Flowers, 1976 | Oil on wood | 50 x 40 cm | Signed and dated lower left

Gama’e al-Moz [Banana Harvest], 1985 | Oil on wood | 50 x 30 cm

Gam’ee al-Louf [Loofah Harvest], 1986 | Oil on wood | 50 x 40 cm

Manzar min Sina [View from Sinaï], 1970 | Oil on canvas | 50 x 100 cm

al-Zeriba IV, [The Village IV], 1974. | Oil on canvas | 45 x 68 cm

Al-Zeriba III [The Village III], 1981 | Oil on canvas | 50 x 70 cm

Piegon Holder, 1983. | Watercolor on paper | 50 x 70 cm | Signed and dated

Grape Harvest, 1983. | Watercolor on paper | 50 x 70 cm | Signed and dated

Cotton Harvest 1983. | Watercolor on paper | 50 x 70 cm | Signed and dated

Mother and children reading, 1984. | Watercolor on paper | 50 x 70 cm | Signed and dated

Goinig to Souk in al-Arish 1983. | Watercolor on paper | 50 x 70 cm | Signed and dated

Bedouin Woman from Sinai, 1983. | Watercolor on paper | 50 x 70 cm | Signed and dated

Kawkab Youssef Al-Assal (1909-2002)

Kawkab Youssef Al-Assal | 40 x 30 cm Watercolor on paper | Signed and dated 1970

Kawkab Youssef Al-Assal | 25 x 35 cm Watercolor on paper | Signed in Arabic lower left

Khadiga Riaz (1914-1981)

The granddaughter of Ahmed Chawki, Egypt’s Prince of Poets, Riad (also Riaz) is regarded as Egypt’s foremost female abstract artist. She opened her home to the avant-garde “Art and Liberty” movement and her villa became a focal meeting point for figures such as poet Georges Henein and the artists Ramsès Younan, Fouad Kamel and Kamel El-Telmisany.

She followed an informal education in painting from the studio of the Armenian Egyptian artist Ashod Zorian between 1950 and 1955. During the 1940s, she won fame as she was awarded a prize in the third Alexandria Biennale in 1959. In 1960 she exhibited at the Venice Biennale, and in 1962, she won the first prize in a national Egyptian painting competition. Riad adopted an abstract style characterized by the heavy use of a multi-layered paints delicately treated on the surface to give an ethereal and surrealist dimension to her compositions.

Khadiga Riaz | 60 x 80 cm | Oil on wood Signed and dated 1966 lower right

Leila Izzet (1933) An artist who, unlike many of her contemporaries, didn’t go the traditional art school route into the world of art. Strangely for an artist famed for her abstract paintings, Leila learned painting from the celebrated Armenian-Egyptian realist painter Ashod Zorian, who ran a successful art academy in Cairo during the 1950s.

As a great lover of animals, Izzet first became known as a painter of horses before moving onto expressionist and becoming famous as an Abstract Artist in the 1990’s.

Leila Izzet 50 x 70 cm Watercolors on paper Signed and dated 1976 lower right

Leila Izzet 32 x 54 cm | Oil on wood Signed and dated 1971 Lower left Signed and dated on the back

Leila Izzet 32 x 54 cm | Oil on wood Signed and dated 1971 Lower left Signed and dated on the back

Leila Izzet | 60 x 90 cm | Oil on wood Signed and dated 1969 lower left

Leila Izzet | 50 x 70 cm | Watercolor on paper Signed and dated 1976 lower right

Leila Izzet | 35 x 50 cm Watercolor on paper Signed and dated 1976

Leila Izzet | 70 x 38 cm Watercolor on paper Signed and dated 1976

Leila Izzet | 32 x 50 cm Watercolor on paper Signed and dated 1975

Leila Izzet | 33 x 45 cm Watercolor on paper Signed lower right

Leila Izzet | 35 x 50 cm Oil on wood | Signed

Leila Izzet | 32 x 54 cm Oil on wood Signed and dated 1971

Margo Veillon (1907-2003) One of Egypt’s best known and best loved artists, Veillon was born in Cairo to a Swiss father and an Austrian mother and died in the same city. For most of her 96 years, she painted and drew Egypt, from north to south, from countryside to city, as well as Paris, London, and other parts of the world. As a witness to a century of enormous change in Egypt as much as elsewhere, she produced a huge, rich, and varied body of work that includes work from across the decades of her career as well as across a variety of media.

Although Margo lived part of her life in Europe, it was clearly Egypt that held her imagination through all those long years. One strand of her work is characterized by an ability to capture and depict the energy of a specific moment in time, be it a toss of wheat in the air to separate the chaff, the stoic bride in a wedding procession, or a horse dancing in a tent at a “mulid”. The stones, sands, and constantly changing light of the desert were the inspiration for many years for another major line of artistic expression. And a third strand was her exploration of all that can be seen, not seen, and sensed in one place, in her remarkable series of Global Perspectives. These threads and others no less individual and innovative make up the extraordinarily rich tapestry of Margo Veillon’s artistic career over nearly one hundred years.

Margo Veillon | 50 x 50 cm | Oil on wood Signed lower left

Margo Veillon | 47 x 35 cm | Oil on wood Signed lower right

Margo Veillon | 34 x 50 cm Oil on canvas Signed and dated 1961

Margo Veillon | 100 x 70 cm Oil on wood Signed and dated 1966

Mariam Abdel-Aleem (1930–2010)

Born in Alexandria, Mariam Abdel Aleem was one of the prominent third generation artists. Recognized for her use of a wide variety of media, she has established herself as a leading graphic artist producing printed works and engravings that tackle timely socio-political issues. Her early work is primarily representational realist paintings inspired by ancient Egyptian Pharaonic art and firmly rooted in local heritage addressing daily life. Later works became flatter and include Arabic text, hand-written calligraphy, collage and symbols to send implicit messages.

Abdel Aleem received her BA from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1954 and an MFA in Graphic Printing from the University of Southern California in 1957.

After her return to Egypt in 1958, she began a long career in higher education, first as a printmaking teacher at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria, then assistant professor and head of the printmaking department of the same institution in 1968.

Eventually, she was granted a full professorship title in 1975 and founded and managed the Design Department from 1985 to 1990. Later, Abdel Aleem earned a Ph.D. in Art History from Helwan University in Cairo before pursuing further graduate studies at the University of Southern California, and the Pratt Institute of New York.

She took part in the Venice Biennale in 1964 and the Sao Paolo Biennale in 1986.

Mariam Abdel Aleem | Oil on board | 60 x 80 cm | Signed and dated 1959

Mariam Abdel Aleem | Mixed media on board | 60 x 80 cm | Signed and dated 2009

Mariam Abdel Aleem | Mixed media on board | 60 x 80 cm | Signed and dated 2009

Mariam Abdel Aleem | 59 X 50 cm | Signed and dated 1963

Mariam Abdel Aleem | Etching | 20 x 16 cm | Signed lower right

Marguerite Nakhla (1908-1977) A student of the French academy and “profoundly Egyptian,” Marguerite Nakhla combined the best of both worlds and in the process, formed an individual visual language: colloquial and biting, yet sophisticated and spiritual. Throughout her life, she painted Egypt-her Egypt, centred around the banal daily life of ordinary people in rural villages and modern cities, exposing the harsh truth while unleashing her sense of humour.

Born in Alexandria the year of the founding of the Egyptian School of Fine Arts and the Coptic Museum in 1908, Nakhla devoted her life to art and interpreted Egypt in a new guise. She is one of the first Egyptian women to pursue pedagogic art studies in the Maahad al-Tarbiyya al-Fanniyya li-l-Mo’allemat (Pedagogic Arts Institute for Women Teachers). In 1934, she was one of the first Egyptian woman artists to travel to Europe to pursue academic studies, first at her own expense then through a government scholarship program. Between 1934 and 1939, Nakhla studied at the École nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris and earned a teaching degree in drawing. She returned to Paris again in 1948 to study graphic arts and in 1951, she spent another year in Paris studying the art of fresco painting at the École du Louvre.

Marguerite Nakhla | La Seine, Paris 45 x 120 cm Oil on canvas Signed and dated 1938 lower right

Marguerite Nakhla | 52 x 73 cm | Oil on canvas Signed lower right

Marguerite Nakhla | 30 x 23 cm | Oil on wood Signed lower left

Marguerite Nakhla | 42 x 63 cm | Oil on cardboard Signed lower right

Marguerite Nakhla | 44 x 44 cm | Oil on board Signed lower right

Marguerite Nakhla | 35 x 45 cm | Oil on cardboard Signed lower right

Mary Artenian

NaÏma El-Shishny (1929-2018)

Mary Artenian | 30 x 45 cm | Mixed media on canvas

NaÏma El-Shishny | 30 x 40 cm | Guache on paper | Signed and dated 1996

Menhat Helmy (1925 – 2004) Menhat Helmy was a pioneering artist in the world of Egyptian etchings and printmaking.

Born in Helwan, Egypt, Helmy graduated from Cairo’s High Institute of Pedagogic Studies for Art in 1949 before continuing her education at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art between 1953–55. Her time at the institution culminated with her winning the Slade Prize for Etching in 1955.

Upon her return to Egypt, Helmy participated in most local exhibitions, winning the Cairo Production Exhibition prize in 1957, as well consecutive Salon Du Caire awards in 1959 and 1960. Helmy was then invited to participate in over a dozen biennales around the world during the 1950s and 1960s, including the Venice Biennale in Italy. She was awarded a prize for her etchings at the 1961 Ljubljana Biennale for Graphic Arts and was later made an Honorary Academic at the prestigious Accademia delle Arti del Disegno for her body of work. She held her first solo show at the Akhenaten Gallery in 1966.

Helmy’s early work was marked by socialist undertones and revolutionary themes.

She frequently painted and etched workers, peasants, women, as well as elaborate urban and rural scenes in Cairo. Later, she turned to abstraction and employed geometry to create works inspired by the exploration of space and technological advancements such as the computer. While Helmy’s earlier work was representative of this political style, her later abstraction stepped far outside its bounds and into new frontiers that were yet to be extensively explored in Egyptian art.

Biography by Journalis: Karim Zidan

Menhat Helmy To the Point, 1978 Etching on paper 74 x 50 cm

Menhat Helmy To the Point, 1978 Etching on paper 74 x 50 cm

Tahia Halim (1919-2003) Tahia Halim is one of the most celebrated modern Egyptian artists. A stylistically and ideologically independent artist, Halim makes up one third of the Golden Triangle of Egyptian woman artists with Inji Efflatoun and Gazbia Sirry. Halim’s career spans four decades during which she came to be known as the pioneer of folk impressionism. Her primary education in music, French and painting took place inside the Royal Palace in Cairo where she was raised, as her father was the military laureate of King Fouad I of Egypt. Halim took drawing lessons at the studio of Hamed Abdallah and they eventually married in 1945.

They were divorced in 1946 but remarried in 1949, moving to Paris, where Halim pursued formal studies at the Académie Julian between 1949 and 1951.

Deeply influenced by ancient Egyptian aesthetics, Halim’s work merges expressionistic paint handling with her unique cultural identity. Her folkloric images of Egypt depict boats on the Nile, Sudanese women, and domestic life. In 1962, she joined a collective trip to Nubia, initiated by then Minister of Culture Tharwat Okasha, to document life as it would never be again. The trip was a turning point in the life of the artist, as from then on, her devotion to Nubia would take over the majority of her paintings. She concentrated on the crowds of Egypt, and was highly influenced by her elder peer, the Egyptian painter Marguerite Nakhla. Her signature style can be seen in the painting Hanan (Tenderness), exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1958, when she became the first female to win the Guggenheim Prize for it. The Guggenheim Museum later purchased the painting.

Tahia Halim | 48 x 48 cm Oil on wood Signed lower left

Tahia Halim | Motherhood | 41 x 32 cm | Pencil on paper Signed and dated 1959

Tahia Halim | The Prisoner | 33 x 27 cm | Pencil on paper Signed and dated 1952

Zeinab Al Saginy (1930)

Zeinab Al Saginy graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in 1956. She earned a PhD in Art Education from Helwan University in 1978. Saginy’s art has become her very own trademark, a unique style that reveals elements of human nature, with a primary dedication to women and children. The setting is always Egypt at its rawest and most beautiful: The Nile, the desert mountains, or the sea. Mother and child represent the main pillars of Saginy’s art, her brush rendering almost tangible the innocence, love and generosity that govern this relationship Seginy describes her work as “a spiritual intermingling with nature, that draws its source from Coptic icons with their adoration and reverence, alongside the wonders of Islamic miniatures.”

Zeinab Al Saginy | 40 x 30 cm Oil pastel on paper | Signed lower right

Zeinab Al Saginy | 70 x 24 cm Oil on wood | Signed lower left

Zeinab Al Saginy | 23 x 32 cm Etching | Signed lower left

Zeinab Al Saginy | 20 x 20 cm Oil on wood | Signed lower left

Vessela Farid

Zenab Abdel Hamid

(1914 – 2007)

(1919-2002)

Vessela Farid | 40 x 55 cm Oil on paper Signed lower right

Zenab Abdel Hamid | 40 x 55 cm Ink on paper | Signed and dated 1957 middle

Attiat Farag

Attiat Farag | 25 x 27 cm | Oil on wood Signed lower left

Attiat Farag | 25 x 38 cm | Oil on wood Signed lower right

Suzy Green

‫ت مربوطة‬ Catalogue Published on the occasion of the show

T-Marbouta March 2021

Text Fatenn Mostafa Kanafani

Photography Wael Seif El Nasr

Coordinators Cherine Chafik Engy El-Bouliny Wael Seif El Nasr

Graphic Concept & Realization Engy El-Bouliny

8 El Kamel Mohamed Street

Suzy Green | 34 x 48 cm | Oil on wood Signed lower left

Zamalek - Cairo - Egypt + 202 2736 3948 www.arttalks.com

Amelia Da Forno Casonato Amy Nimr Attiyat Farag Cléa Badaro Effat Naghi Ehsan Mokhtar Eliz Partam Emma Caly-Ayad Gazbia Sirry Inji Efflatoun Kawkab Youssef Al-Assal Khadiga Riaz Leila Izzet Margo Veillon Marguerite Nakhla Mariam Abdel-Aleem Mary Artenian Menhat Helmy Naïma el-Shishiny Suzy Green Tahia Halim Vessela Farid Zenab Abd El Hamid Zeinab Abdou Zeinab Al Sageny Zohra Efflatoun