Attribué A Youssef Kamel:  1891-1971
"Celebration of a newborn"
50x80 cm
Oil on canvas

Youssef Kamel was among the first generation of artists who began their studies in the first school of Art established by Prince Youssef Kamal in 1908 in Darb El Gamamiz in Cairo. His colleagues were sculpture Mahmoud Mokhtar, Mohamed Hassan, Ragheb Ayad and Ahmed Sabry. After graduating from the art school both Ragheb Ayad and Youssef Kamel were appointed as professors of art in a primary school. Soon both of them were yearning to complete their studies in Italy and they decided that each will replace the other in his work to enable his colleague to go to Rome and study art. This act was very much appreciated by the parliament and a decree was issued to send the rest of the artists on special missions to Rome and Paris. Youssef Kamel was the first to establish the impressionistic movement in Egypt and Ragheb Ayad was the first to establish the expressionistic movement in Egypt.

Tahia Halim: 1919-2003
"Nubian Girl in the Field"
75.5x53.5 cm
Oil on canvas

Tahia Halim was born in Cairo in 1919. Her primary education took place inside the Royal Palace where she was raised, as her father was the laureate of King Fouad. In high school she took two years off to learn French, piano and painting under the painters Youssef Traboulsi, the great artist Gerom, then under artist Hamed Abdullah at his studio in 1943. She married Hamed Abdullah in 1945 and left for Paris to join Julian Academy (1949-1951). She returned to Egypt in 1951 and started exhibiting in solo shows, group exhibitions and international exhibitions such as the Biennial of Alexandria, Italy, Brazil, Sweden, England, France, Poland and finally in the USA in 1982. Her artwork was divided in 3 periods; from 1941 to 1951 was first a period of composition, from 1952 to 1962 she developed a more confident and original art which was named Folkloric impressionism and her third period was focused on Nubia, clearly demonstrating the influence of old Egyptian art. In 1984, she started teaching painting in her Atelier in Cairo. Tahia Halim was awarded the Guggenheim prize in 1958 and the Government encouraging prize in 1968. Her paintings are in the Guggenheim in New York, the Modern Art Museum of Egytian Art in Cairo, and in Stockholm.

Nahmia Saad: 1912-1945
"Nude"
50x60 cm
Wax colors & pencils on paper

Born in Assiut, Upper Egypt. Studied painting at the higher school of Fine Arts on its inception. Was attracted to graphic art and studied under Bernard Rice professor of graphic art at the time and discovered new vista. Exhibited much of his work in the Salon du Caire exhibitions. He executed decorative panels for the main entrance of the Egyptian Pavilion of the Paris International exhibition of 1937, and was awarded the exhibition’s Gold Medal. In conjunction with Mohamed Nagi, Mohamed Labib and Margot Veillon, he provided the illustrations for the tourist book “ Egypt, Land of Exploration “ which was produced on the occasion of the Paris Exhibition. He devoted himself to depicting Upper Egypt in the Luxor studios, producing some of his finest graphic works. He died of a pulmonary disease of the age of thirty-three.

RAGHEB AYAD: 1892 – 1982
"The Dancing Horse and the Musicians of Upper Egypt"
50x70 cm
Oil on board
Signed

Ragheb Ayad was born in Cairo on the 10^th of March 1892 and inscribed himself in the School of Fine Arts since its opening in 1908. After graduation he taught art in the high Coptic school and made several trips on his own to France and Italy to complete his artistic education. He was the first to obtain a governmental scholarship to Rome where he stayed for five years studying art in the Superior Institute of Fine Arts. Since his return to Cairo in 1930, he was assigned as director of the decorative section of the Faculty of Applied Arts. In 1937, he is named professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts and director of its free section. He was in charge of reorganizing the Coptic museum and since 1950 became head of the Museum of Modern Art where he made a special section in it for the great sculpture Mahmoud Mokhtar. Since 1924 and for half a century he participated in most of the exhibitions of the ‘Cairo Salon’ plus organizing 40 solo exhibitions. Ragheb Ayad is considered one of the pioneers of Egyptian art in the 20^th century alongside Mahmoud Mokhtar, Youssef Kamel, Mohamed Hassan, Mahmoud Said and Mohamed Naghy.  Ragheb Ayad is the first to get rid of the western influences and to create an Egyptian art with its own solid identity. For the rest of his life Ragheb Ayad was dedicated to the popular themes of the Egyptian life whether it is the cosmopolitan Cairo or the upper Egyptian villages and the small towns. He visited all these places recording the pulsating life of the soukes, the moulids, the cafes and the men and women dancers. Ragheb Ayad remained forever the painter of this true Egyptian universe. Ragheb Ayad is considered to be the first expressionistic painter who influenced the second and third generation of artists. Aside from the popular, Ayad was attracted to the religious themes where he portrayed the flight of the holly family in Egypt and the birth of Jesus.

YOUSSEF SIDA: 1922 – 1994
"Boy and Girl"
Oil on canvas
50x43 cm

Born in 1922 in Damietta and in 1945 he got his degree from the Higher Institute of Educational Art. In 1947, he participated in establishing the influential Group of Modern Art. In 1949 he participated in the Egyptian exhibition in Paris. In 1950, he received the Full Bright award for studying art in Minnesota University. He then studied in Colombia University in NY and began exhibiting his work in NY and Minnesota from 1951-1952. He participated in 1953 in the Biennale of Sao Paolo in Brazil. Upon returning to Egypt in 1954 he became active in local and international exhibitions. In 1961, he was sent by the Egyptian government to receive his PHD from Columbus University, Ohio. After which he started exhibiting his work in in Columbus and in Washington DC. Youssef Sida’s work at the start was mainly dealing with popular Egyptian themes. We can distinguish Sida’s work through his power of using primary colors in its purest form directly the tubes without being mixed with other colors. Also we can notice in his work a tendency towards the qualities and techniques of children’s art. In his later years Sida began experimenting with Arabic Calligraphy by concentrating on the forms and shapes that is dominant in the popular Egyptian motives and décor. We can witness the dynamism in his Arabic calligraphy work. Sida is also known for his huge murals depicting the political life in the early period of the revolution.

Hidayet Chiraz : unknown - 1965
"Camel by the water canal"
45x35 cm
Water Color on paper
Signed

Unfortunately very little is known in Egypt about Hidayet the great Turkish painter and watercolorist. His name is merely mentioned in the art books published at the beginning of the century with some photos of his art. Hidayet became a very well known voice and even his works of watercolor are sold at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Our knowledge about him is that he is of Turkish origin and studied art in England especially watercolor. Early in the 20’s Hidayet came to Egypt through Palestine to cure himself from the rheumatic fever he suffered from. His settling in Egypt seemed to be his cure and he stayed in it until he died in 1965. So it was the light of Egypt that gave him the incentive to practice his art. Thus he produced hundreds or thousands of Nilotic sceneries and landscapes of the countryside as well as his recording of ancient Egyptian relics from Luxor and Aswan and all over Upper Egypt. Hidayet was known to be the painter of the royal family and the upper Egyptian aristocracy. During that era it was these societies that appreciated and understood art. So Hidayet became very popular and usually he was requested to make special paintings whether oil or watercolors with definite subjects. His watercolor is supposed to be the best in the history of Egyptian art. He was able to capture the scene in front of him whether it is from old Cairo or Pharonic Egypt in a most exquisite way with the balanced well studied effects of shadow and light and men in old garments. He also recorded activities of the high society from the Gezira club which was frequented by the high aristocracy. Hidayet had a school in his downtown apartment where he taught art.

Hamed Nada: 1924 – 1990
"Woman and Bird"
20x20 cm
Oil on paper
Signed 1974                                     

Nada was born in the district of the citadel which is supposed to be the oldest popular area of Cairo. In this district Nada the boy was confronted with those people believing in magic and the supernatural powers living their day dreaming of the next without moving or attempting to confront what they have. Hamed Nada’s paintings are essentially autobiographical. These images he depicted in his paintings originated in the atmosphere of the communal home where he was born. They evoke his neighborhood and its traditions with folkloric details as the water pipe or mischievous jinn. At the same time his paintings are allegorical. They tell stories inspired by the storyteller. During his first period Nada’s approach to art was marked by his association with the Egyptian literary society and their paper ‘El-Sakafa’. He also was influenced by his introduction in this period to Youssef Amin’s group of Contemporary Art and by his school friend A.H.El-Gazzar.

Ervand Demirdjian: 1870 – 1936
"Portrait"
30x40 cm
Oil on canvas
Signed

Ervand Demirdjian was born in May 1870 in Constantinople where he studied fine arts and graduated with honors in 1890. In 1893 he went to Paris and enrolled in the junior academy of Art becoming a student to painter Jean Paul Laurens and to the famous orientalist Benjamin Constant. At the same time he worked at the Louvre studying and copying classical works such as Delacroix, Dante and Virgil. After returning to Constantinople he was faced with the persecution of the Turks against the Armenians. In 1896 he fled with a group of Armenians and reached Alexandria and from where he moved to Cairo. Together with 2,000 other Armenian refugees he began a miserable life until the local Armenian community led by Decran Pasha did its best to shelter and feed them. After a short time Demirdjian was able to become a part of the Egyptian popular life and started studying their mode of life and mannerism. This led to an enormous quantity of drawings and paintings documenting everyday life. He participated in some of the annual exhibitions of the Circle of Artists which is the first artistic group in modern Egypt. In 1901 he began lecturing art and teaching in the Khorenian Armenian School where he tutored students privately and the most talented was the known painter Diran Garabedian (1882-1963) who became his successor and one of the first avant-garde in Egypt.

Dr. Mohamed Ismail: 1936 – 1993
"Symbolism and mystic figures"       
250x120 cm                
Oil on wood                 

Dr. Mohamed Ismail was born in 1936 in Zagazig in Egypt. He graduated and obtained his Masters in painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo. He received his Ph.D. in the history of Fine Arts. He held numerous private and collective exhibitions from 1958 – 1969. Dr M.Ismail started his globe trotting from 1969 till 1987. He started with Europe visiting Greece, Spain and France going to North Africa and then to Turkey in the Near East. He moved on to Beirut, Kuwait, Iran and India before breaking camp to his favorite continent the Far East. In Tokyo he knew love and considered it home. He has many acquisitions in several countries and the most important is in Museum of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was then invited by the Shahbanou of Iran, who was very impressed by his work to teach art there. Consequence he learned farsi and headed to Tehran to paint and lecture there for years until the revolution. He obtained many International and Arab prizes.