WATANI International
30 January 2011
Bahgouri at home
A retrospective exhibition of the works of the veteran artist George Bahgouri is showing at the Masar Gallery in Zamalek, Cairo, from 16 January to 7 February.
The 28 paintings on display include self-portraits of the artist with his pencils and brushes, some portraits of the 20th-century diva Umm Kalthoum, and works that feature life in lively areas such as al-Hussein. Other paintings, such as Le Violinist and Le Marche, feature the festival and musical life of Paris.
Born in 1932, Bahgouri studied at the School of Fine Arts in Cairo before going on to study in Paris. His 30 years in France helped refine his talents in drawing, painting and sculpting.
50 years of art
The Design Centre of Cairo in Heliopolis, has been hosting a large selection of masterpieces by the Egyptian painter Gazbiya Sirry, one of Egypt’s leading contemporary artists.
Sirry studied fine arts in Cairo and taught painting at the American University of Cairo and at Helwan University. She produces diversified works of art, which testify to her extraordinary versatility. It is difficult to confine Sirry in any traditional school, although her vivid and bold brush strokes share some features with Neo-Expressionism.
In a career spanning more than 50 years Sirry has displayed her paintings in more than 50 solo exhibitions throughout the world, receiving official recognition and several international prizes.
Works from the 1960s and 70s
The Safar Khan Gallery in Zamalek, Cairo, has held an exhibition by the Egyptian artist Mamdouh Ammar.
Ammar graduated from Cairo University with a fine arts degree in 1952, and has taught in the same school since 1959. He went to Paris and Rome on a scholarship to study painting and mural art.
Through a period of 40 years of creative work, Mamdouh Ammar created his own niche in portrait painting with a style relevant to the realism of his subjects, the expression of their features and the use of warm colours that enrich his technical mastery.
Charcoal drawings
Earlier this month the Bibliotheca Alexandrina held an exhibition of 50 oil paintings and charcoal studies created by the late artist Hassan Soliman in the period that preceded his death in 2008. The themes of the paintings varied between the landscapes, which he painted in Fayoum, and scenes of sailing boats in the Nile. Among the still-life paintings on show were The Brass Jar and Flowers and Fruit.
Soliman art is inspired by the ancient Egyptian traditions that reflected popular worship of the sun and earth.
Line and colour
Ceramic artworks have been on display during this month in an exhibition by the artist Tarek Gadel-Karim at the Teif Gallery of the Faculty of Classified Education in Cairo.
The exhibition’s theme centres on the third line that is formed inside the ceramic’s twisting shape, side by side the colours, which play into an aesthetic dimension.
Twenty-something
“Twenty-something” is the title of a collective exhibition displaying the paintings and sculptures of nine female artists at the Khan al-Maghraby Gallery in Zamaelk, Cairo. Among the artists are: Samar al-Barawy, Shaimaa’ Aziz, Khlood Soliman, Rania Abul-Azem and Amira Stouhi.