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Lot Essay
Grilling Lamb in Cyprus by Mohammad Naghi is a remarkable example of the artist’s oeuvre. This work is produced after the revelation Naghi had with the Abyssinia series which he painted during the thirties. This series marked a shift in Naghi’s style as he reflected on his Western training in the quest to find a modern, intrinsically Egyptian style. This change in his style is seen through the bold experimentation with vibrant colours and the depiction of quotidian acts in the present work.
Growing up in an aristocratic family in cosmopolitan Alexandria, Naghi (1888-1956) was exposed to western techniques and schools early on. He was trained under Alberto Piattoli during his school years and continued his fine arts studies at the Scuola Libera del Nuda in Florence after gaining a law degree. He later went to Giverny, north-west of Paris, to learn from the impressionist master Claude Monet (1840-1926). In 1926, Naghi returned to France and was introduced to post-Cubist artist André Lhote (1885-1962) who would become a close friend of both Mohammad Naghi and his sister Effat (1905-1994). Naghi had always been both aware and critical of the marginalisation of Egyptian art, and spent his career as a diplomat and an artist attempting to reconcile his knowledge of western techniques and aesthetics with the revival of Egypt’s artistic identity. Painted during his final years in the fifties, Grilling Lamb in Cyprus can be seen as Naghi’s culmination of his pursuits towards finding an intrinsically Egyptian style.
Growing up in an aristocratic family in cosmopolitan Alexandria, Naghi (1888-1956) was exposed to western techniques and schools early on. He was trained under Alberto Piattoli during his school years and continued his fine arts studies at the Scuola Libera del Nuda in Florence after gaining a law degree. He later went to Giverny, north-west of Paris, to learn from the impressionist master Claude Monet (1840-1926). In 1926, Naghi returned to France and was introduced to post-Cubist artist André Lhote (1885-1962) who would become a close friend of both Mohammad Naghi and his sister Effat (1905-1994). Naghi had always been both aware and critical of the marginalisation of Egyptian art, and spent his career as a diplomat and an artist attempting to reconcile his knowledge of western techniques and aesthetics with the revival of Egypt’s artistic identity. Painted during his final years in the fifties, Grilling Lamb in Cyprus can be seen as Naghi’s culmination of his pursuits towards finding an intrinsically Egyptian style.