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 soaks, 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. Moreover Ayad is known to be the first Egyptian artist to be influenced by the ancient Egyptian art and this quiet relevant in his paintings dealing with the rural life. In them we see the succession of different aspects of the rural life being portrayed vertically on horizontal layers instead of the perspective view.  The last period of his artistic life is his portrayal of the monks in the different monasteries of Egypt as well as capturing on his canvas the architecture of these monasteries that are considered to be the purest form of architecture. In 1965 Ayad was decorated with the highest honor of the Egyptian state and was also decorated by Italy in appreciation of his art.

Tahia Halim: 1919-2003
"Al Hawdag"
66x90 cm
Oil on canvas
Signed

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.

El Hussein Fawzi: 1905-1990
"Nile in Aswan"
190x60 cm
Oil on wood
Signed

Born in Helmia district, Cairo on 4 September 1905, El Hussein Fawzi was known in Egypt and the Middle East for his pioneering work in the field of journalistic graphic arts. Fawzi began his artistic studies in 1922 at the School of Fine Arts, studying oil painting. He won the first prize at an art competition for which he received an art fellowship in 1928 and entered the printing school in Paris, from which he received a lithography diploma in 1932. He also studied lithography at the Estienne School in Paris. He was an artist and professor of oil painting before joining the Paris Higher School of Arts and Decoration from which he received a diploma in 1933. Fawzi was also awarded an honorary degree for an oil painting exhibited at the 1939 French Salon. Although Fawzi's fame was as a graphic artist he also had an active career in the fine arts. Upon his return to Egypt, he founded the Department of Graphic Arts at Faculty of Fine Arts and later was appointed director of the department, a position he held until his retirement. He made lots of illustrations to books by Naguib Mahfouz that were published in Al Ahram news paper and also made drawings of all the big mosques of Egypt that were published in two big books. El Hussein Fawzi painted one of the most renowned and beautiful paintings in the history of Egyptian art called “El Dalalah”. He also supervised the Fine Arts Studio in Luxor from 1954 to 1960. Fawzi was one of four Egyptian artists to have their work engraved on crystal by the Steuben glass factory in New York (others were Gamal El Seguini, Hamed Abdallah and Hussein Bikar). Fawzi was awarded the State Prize and Order of Sciences and Arts in 1963, and in the same year, won the Lithography prize at the Alexandria Biennial. In 1989 he was awarded the State Prize of Merit.

Gazbia Sirry: 1925
"Houses by the Nile"
50x50 cm
Oil on canvas
Signed

Not much can be said of Gazbia Sirry that hasn’t already been said throughout her distinguished career. She’s been called a living legend, a contemporary art master and everything in between. Renowned art critic Mokhtar Al Attar said of Sirry: “She was born to be the conscience of a nation, with its hopes and pains, joys and sorrows”. Sirry is undoubtedly one of Egypt’s living treasures. Her career spans over five decades, and she shows no signs of stopping. The very idea of retiring from her craft is alien to her. Ceasing to make art is like ceasing to live, she’ll tell you matter of factly in her Zamalek house come studio. She is part of what creates and it is obvious that art is her way of feeling and communicating. Sirry’s candour and sensuality are more often than not the most overwhelming aspects of the work and the woman. The subject of myriad books and lectures, Sirry has shown in every major city in the world. Her works are held in many esteemed public and private collections and traded with an almost religious fervour. She was chosen among millions to exhibit at the Biennial de Sao Paolo; shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Jean Miro and Salvador Dali. But this isn’t what maker her genius. Her talent lies not in the paintings or in the objects she creates, but in the way she goes about creating them. She doesn’t use pre-sketches, blueprints or plans to get her work out. She thinks on canvas, sketches with oil and brainstorms in watercolour. Her strokes are deliberate and yet each one has a life of its own; it’s almost as if the brush and knife were furiously going about the work of catching up with her soul. Sirry believes that the spontaneity of her work is what keeps it fresh and makes it her own.

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.