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Lot Essay
‘The Egyptian city, characterized by its half circles, arches, vaults, triangles, rectangles, lattice windows…they are the same structures that characterize the architecture of Arab houses…the different kids of roofs, balconies, windows, and dates, the minarets and church towers, the special touch that gives the cities of Egypt their special character. Man melts and becomes a part of all that, of the noise and peace, the smells, the plants, and the strong colors that correspond to his hot emotions. I sing the praises of the love of life and the love of Egypt'’ (J.Sirri Gazbia Sirry: Lust for Color, Cairo 1998, p 38.)
Christie’s is offering an important work from the Egyptian modernist artist Gazbia Sirry, coming from the private collection of the late Mr Zygmunt Zajdler, who organized a show in 1970 for the artist in his UK gallery, Zaydler Gallery. An important moment for the artist at the time, Sirry recounts in a handwritten letter to Mr Zajdler on 14 March 2017, ‘I am so proud to be on my own as a freelancing artist, financing each exhibition from the sellings of previous ones. Of course, you understand that is my life, as well as my own career…this exhibition is to be strictly my own, not to be patronized by either personage or government.’ Included in the letter she proudly attached catalogues of her recent exhibitions at the Goethe Institute in Cairo, with several art critical essays published in Paris.
Gazbia Sirry is one of the most well-known female modern Egyptian artists, whose works capture the consciousness of the Egyptian way of life, illuminating the struggles and beauties of her country. Christie’s is offering three works that illustrate her more mature paintings and diverse style, each of the works broad in execution, with forms dissolving into interlocking shapes and with broad brush strokes. A member of the Group of Modern Art formed during the Egyptian revolution in 1952, she was in connection with artists such as Hamed Ewais, Zeinab Abd El Hamid and Salah Yousry. Creating these visual environments, in city life or landscapes, Sirry captures balanced line, vertical and horizontal forms and structure native to her ancient Egyptian heritage across her artistic development from expressionism, to symbolism and ultimately abstraction.
The featured city scape scene is part of her most inventive style from the 1960s to early 1970s, depicting towns, people, and buildings of Cairo and along the Nile. Most unusual in its composition, she paints a dual city scene, the masses of buildings reflecting against each other amidst a circular cloudlike presence. Many of her work from the 1950s and 60s carried important social messages, whether addresses poverty and famine, driven by the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. During this time, she concentrated on houses, painting endlessly in different variations the cramped quarters over shadowing each other, in light of the overcrowding due to the urbanization and homogenization of neighborhoods. While her works right after the Arab-Israeli war depict burning homes, her later housing works of which the present works adhere, depict a fine attention to detail, using geometric vertical and horizontal lines boldly outlined. With firm roots to the ground, they are juxtaposed against each other as family members. Shifting from one school of art to another, Sirry continues to depict an overwhelming expressionism, capturing popular colours and focusing on the boldness and plasticity of forms and lines.
Christie’s is offering an important work from the Egyptian modernist artist Gazbia Sirry, coming from the private collection of the late Mr Zygmunt Zajdler, who organized a show in 1970 for the artist in his UK gallery, Zaydler Gallery. An important moment for the artist at the time, Sirry recounts in a handwritten letter to Mr Zajdler on 14 March 2017, ‘I am so proud to be on my own as a freelancing artist, financing each exhibition from the sellings of previous ones. Of course, you understand that is my life, as well as my own career…this exhibition is to be strictly my own, not to be patronized by either personage or government.’ Included in the letter she proudly attached catalogues of her recent exhibitions at the Goethe Institute in Cairo, with several art critical essays published in Paris.
Gazbia Sirry is one of the most well-known female modern Egyptian artists, whose works capture the consciousness of the Egyptian way of life, illuminating the struggles and beauties of her country. Christie’s is offering three works that illustrate her more mature paintings and diverse style, each of the works broad in execution, with forms dissolving into interlocking shapes and with broad brush strokes. A member of the Group of Modern Art formed during the Egyptian revolution in 1952, she was in connection with artists such as Hamed Ewais, Zeinab Abd El Hamid and Salah Yousry. Creating these visual environments, in city life or landscapes, Sirry captures balanced line, vertical and horizontal forms and structure native to her ancient Egyptian heritage across her artistic development from expressionism, to symbolism and ultimately abstraction.
The featured city scape scene is part of her most inventive style from the 1960s to early 1970s, depicting towns, people, and buildings of Cairo and along the Nile. Most unusual in its composition, she paints a dual city scene, the masses of buildings reflecting against each other amidst a circular cloudlike presence. Many of her work from the 1950s and 60s carried important social messages, whether addresses poverty and famine, driven by the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. During this time, she concentrated on houses, painting endlessly in different variations the cramped quarters over shadowing each other, in light of the overcrowding due to the urbanization and homogenization of neighborhoods. While her works right after the Arab-Israeli war depict burning homes, her later housing works of which the present works adhere, depict a fine attention to detail, using geometric vertical and horizontal lines boldly outlined. With firm roots to the ground, they are juxtaposed against each other as family members. Shifting from one school of art to another, Sirry continues to depict an overwhelming expressionism, capturing popular colours and focusing on the boldness and plasticity of forms and lines.