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Lot Essay
Eloquently exquisite and previously in one of the most important collections in private hands, the collection of Dr. Mohammed Saïd Farsi represented a complete history of Egyptian art in the 20th century. The collector, known for his profound passion and interest for Egypt, especially Alexandria, where he completed his studies, was the first Lord Mayor of Jeddah and is one of the Middle East's greatest patrons for the visual arts. While he was a driving force in the Egyptian art scene, Dr. Farsi was very supportive of young emerging art and artists and succeeded at establishing a close relationship with some great names of the international art world, including César, Henri Moore and Victor Vasarely.
Following the success of Christie’s sales of Dr. Mohammed Saïd Farsi’s collection spread over five auctions in two locations (Dubai and Paris) in April 2010, October 2010, November 2010 and October 2014 (live and online auctions), Christie’s is thrilled to present three more seminal works of Modern Egyptian Art from the collection in this sale taking place in London for the first time. This season’s selection includes the present rare portrait by Abdel Hadi El-Gazzar, standing out from his surrealistic and cosmic paintings and drawings, a voluptuous reclining nude showcasing Alexandrian master Mahmoud Saïd’s colourist’s skills and his ability to glorify the female body (Lot 13) as well as an exclusive work by Hamed Nada entitled Pain (Lot 17), a true idiom of the Contemporary Art Group.
Gazzar’s portrait was painted during his scholarship in Rome in 1960, alongside a handful of other portraits, two of which Christie’s sold in October 2014 and a few others that represent the artist’s wife. The sitter is the artist Salah Youssef Kamel, who was the director of the Egyptian Academy of Fine Arts in Rome from 1956 until 1979. Following a dispute between the artist and Salah Youssef Kamel which was never resolved, this portrait was never publicly exhibited or published until after Kamel’s death. Gazzar accentuated Kamel’s stern facial features with the dark frowning eyebrows, bordering on caricature, and seems to have caught the sitter in the middle of a sentence, leaving the sitter’s mouth slightly open. Despite the unmistakable reminiscence of traditional Renaissance portraiture of art patrons, represented in a three-quarter view, Gazzar gives the portrait not only a modern twist, in daringly modelling Kamel’s face with flesh colour tones heightened by a green pigment, but also an Egyptian character by elaborately decorating the background with friezes of folkloric and almost hieroglyphic motifs. Wearing the formal professor’s dress of the Academy, the contrast of this contemporary figure set against what seems to be an Ancient Egyptian fresco also in the way the work was executed, Kamel finds himself caught between the pictorial space and reality, separated from the viewer only by a ledge on which he leans his left hand and has laid a book. One of the last portraits and last oil painting by Abdel Hadi El-Gazzar available on the market, this work places itself at the turning point of the artist’s oeuvre during which he returned to a more classical form of figuration through portraits, leaving his Surrealistic and folkloric production behind him onto his predominantly Cosmic and Westernised compositions.
Following the success of Christie’s sales of Dr. Mohammed Saïd Farsi’s collection spread over five auctions in two locations (Dubai and Paris) in April 2010, October 2010, November 2010 and October 2014 (live and online auctions), Christie’s is thrilled to present three more seminal works of Modern Egyptian Art from the collection in this sale taking place in London for the first time. This season’s selection includes the present rare portrait by Abdel Hadi El-Gazzar, standing out from his surrealistic and cosmic paintings and drawings, a voluptuous reclining nude showcasing Alexandrian master Mahmoud Saïd’s colourist’s skills and his ability to glorify the female body (Lot 13) as well as an exclusive work by Hamed Nada entitled Pain (Lot 17), a true idiom of the Contemporary Art Group.
Gazzar’s portrait was painted during his scholarship in Rome in 1960, alongside a handful of other portraits, two of which Christie’s sold in October 2014 and a few others that represent the artist’s wife. The sitter is the artist Salah Youssef Kamel, who was the director of the Egyptian Academy of Fine Arts in Rome from 1956 until 1979. Following a dispute between the artist and Salah Youssef Kamel which was never resolved, this portrait was never publicly exhibited or published until after Kamel’s death. Gazzar accentuated Kamel’s stern facial features with the dark frowning eyebrows, bordering on caricature, and seems to have caught the sitter in the middle of a sentence, leaving the sitter’s mouth slightly open. Despite the unmistakable reminiscence of traditional Renaissance portraiture of art patrons, represented in a three-quarter view, Gazzar gives the portrait not only a modern twist, in daringly modelling Kamel’s face with flesh colour tones heightened by a green pigment, but also an Egyptian character by elaborately decorating the background with friezes of folkloric and almost hieroglyphic motifs. Wearing the formal professor’s dress of the Academy, the contrast of this contemporary figure set against what seems to be an Ancient Egyptian fresco also in the way the work was executed, Kamel finds himself caught between the pictorial space and reality, separated from the viewer only by a ledge on which he leans his left hand and has laid a book. One of the last portraits and last oil painting by Abdel Hadi El-Gazzar available on the market, this work places itself at the turning point of the artist’s oeuvre during which he returned to a more classical form of figuration through portraits, leaving his Surrealistic and folkloric production behind him onto his predominantly Cosmic and Westernised compositions.