Procession to Work

Menhat Helmy was one of the few women artists of her generation who managed to complete their studies abroad. She attended the Slade School of Fine Art in London between 1952 and 1955.

Influenced by revolutionary ideology and integrating the kind of socialist imagery with specifically Egyptian themes, her work from the 1950s often carries a strong social message. This painting, resembling a frieze of workers an in a pharaonic mould, is typical of her work of this period. In later decades she was to turn away from figurative painting as her style and subject matter became ever more abstract.