One of the most revered Egyptian painters of the twentieth century, Abdel Hadi El-Gazzar was born in Alexandria in 1925. The son of an ulama, and later raised in the bustling Cairene district of Sayyida Zaynab where popular magic was pertinent, his childhood was steeped in religion and ritual and yielded a social conscience cognisant of class and privilege. From a young age, El-Gazzar’s oeuvre became distinguished by its whimsical style, which Aimé Azar describes as presenting “an innate taste for magic and fantasy” (Aimé Azar, La Peinture Moderne en Egypte, Cairo 1961, p. 114). El-Gazzar dared to reposition old Orientalists tropes by translating them into new empowering visages of postcolonial Egypt, providing a fascinating glimpse into the traditions, superstitions, and magical beliefs of the country’s lower classes. Having been adopted as the protégé of his first.mes ntor Hussein Youssef Amin, El-Gazzar was encouraged to transfer his university studies from the Faculty of Medicine to the Higher School of Replica Handbags s in 1944. El-Gazzar was later awarded a scholarship to study at Rome’s Istituto Centrale del Restauro from 1957-1961, where he was to become the institution’s first Egyptian art graduate. He travelled extensively across Europe, developing his knowledge of Western art practices as well as the Italian language.

Existentialism became one of the central philosophies of the artist’s oeuvre, as well as local sociopolitical commentary. Heir to the prior generation of anti-Fascist Egyptian Surrealism, El-Gazzar emerged as a leading figure of the successive Contemporary Art Group. Spawned from the late 1930s Art and Liberty Group, this new movement was founded by Amin, whose teachings emancipated his young painters from the rigidity of academicism and colonial visual vernaculars. In the aftermath of the 1952 Egyptian Revolution, artists assumed the mission of revitalising the language of the nation’s art in order to preserve and celebrate ‘Egyptianness.’ Louis Awad explains, “[The Contemporary Art Group] were constantly engaged in discussions about art, literature, philosophy, politics, social and cultural values, as though all of these were one and the same. They were rebels” (Awad quoted in Sam Bardaouil, Surrealism in Egypt: Modernism and the Contemporary Art Group, London and New York 2017, p. 195). In deriving inspiration from popular traditions and culture and reimagining them through a modernist lens, El-Gazzar and his contemporaries empowered the masses through art that was socially, historically, and psychologically responsive. The work of the Contemporary Art Group was at once local and universal, utilising styles borrowed from the West to explore motifs and narratives that pertained to and resonated with the Egyptian individual. In their reaction against academicism, the group embraced the languages of the European neo-avant garde; Gazzar’s work bears the marks of Surrealism, Expressionism and Fauvism, and shares a particular likeness with Swiss artist Paul Klee, and here, Catalan artist Joan Miró.

There is a noticeable correlation between El-Gazzar’s t.mes in Rome and his abstract works; this venture can be read as a synthesis of the vibrant post-war art scene, which bore witness to Lucio Fontana’s conception of Movimento Spazialista (Spatialism). Founded in Milan in 1947, the movement experimented with the era’s spirit of revolutionary scientific progress. Like Klee and Miró, El-Gazzar explored the relation between man and space, often rendered through cosmic ideograms, as in the present work. Untitled (Couleurs d'archeologie), which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale the year following its conception, marries art with science, using a distinctive grattage (scraping) technique to resemble constellations among a monochrome palette, which recalls the dark expanse of the universe. The work pays homage to the artist’s earlier training as well as wider scientific developments; the Cold War period saw the space race between the United States and Soviet Union, and although Egypt was not involved, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s presidency saw the launch of its own national space programme. Invoking a dialogue between global movements and the idiosyncrasies of the modern Egyptian ethos, El-Gazzar negates artistic binaries and reveals a true mastery of practice.

Despite his premature death in 1966, El-Gazzar left behind an astounding volume of pioneering works across a breadth of distinct phases, in turn reinvigorating the course of modern Egyptian art. El-Gazzar has exhibited across North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, most notably at the Art et Liberté, Rupture, War and Surrealism in Egypt (1938-1948) travelling exhibition (2016-2018), thrice at the Venice Biennale (1952, 1956 and 1960) and at the 2nd São Paulo Biennale (1953-1954). In 2023, the catalogue raisonné Abdel Hadi El-Gazzar: The Complete Works was published, forming a comprehensive study and archive of the artist’s paintings and drawings.