L'attente (The Waiting)

Having exhibited alongside the Western masters Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalì, Omar El-Nagdi is one of the most important contemporary Egyptian artists. His striking works stand out as platforms for rich inter-cultural encounters between the Arab and the Western worlds. El-Nagdi's pictorial vocabulary is rooted in his home country's politics and in the lives led by Cairo citizens. He obtains such profuse imagery by combining poetry with elements inherited from 20th century artistic trends namely Expressionism, Cubism and Fauvism. The artist himself claims that he took inspiration from Paul Cézanne for his compositions, Paul Gauguin for his palette of colours and Vincent Van Gogh for the emotion and intensity emanating from his works. At the same time, El-Nagdi also preserves in his paintings the tradition of Egyptian mural paintings whilst exploring the jewel-like effect achieved through monumental mosaics, having extensively studied the latter in Ravenna, Italy, in the 1960s.
The present lot entitled L'attente showcases Nagdi's versatile skills as a painter, draughtsman and master of applied arts, particularly of ceramics and mosaics.
Nagdi covers the surface of his canvas with complex arabesques and designs, reminiscent of renowned French artist Henri Matisse's art. With the variety and density of shapes fused with luminescent colours and gleaming gold leaf filling up the entire pictorial space, the overall visual effect achieved is that of opulence and of outstanding dexterity. Although L'attente seems to depict an ordinary everyday scene, the richness of pigments and patterns overflowing the surface display the artist's sensitivity towards his subject and his ability to transform such a common scene into a lively timelessness. By 1991, when Nagdi painted this masterpiece, the artist was accomplishing his third and last year as Professor and President of the Furniture and Interior Design Department at the Faculty of Applied Arts in Helwan University, Cairo.