Lot 30: AHMED MORSI (EGYPT, BORN 1930) Self-Portrait with Cello oil on board, f

AHMED MORSI (EGYPT, BORN 1930) Self-Portrait with Cello oil on board, framed signed and dated ’52 (lower right), executed in 1952 67.5 x 54cm (26 9/16 x 21 1/4in).

Provenance: Property from a private collection, Alexandria The artwork was gifted by the artist to Mahmoud Moussa in the early 1950s, thence by descent to the artists family Ahmed Morsi was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1930. We are delighted to be presenting one of the first self-portraits produced by Morsi to come to the market. This marvellous painting was gifted to the distinguished sculptor Mahmoud Moussa who was a dear friend of Morsi. Self-portrait with Cello was executed in 1952 during the period he was majoring in English Literature at the University of Alexandria. Between the years of 1952-1953, while undergoing his degree at university, Morsi was practising art alongside other prominent Egyptian artists at the Atelier of Silivio Becchi, son of Italian master Otorino Bechi in Alexandria. By his early twenties Morsi was participating in major exhibitions with the most notable Egyptian modernists including Fouad Kamel, Abdul Hadi Al Gazzar, Hamed Nada and Mahmoud Moussa. His last studio in Egypt before moving to Baghdad in 1955 was the Alexandria Atelier and he was one of the few handpicked artists to be selected to exhibit at the opening of the city’s Museum of Fine Arts. Morsi’s visual language tends to be theatrical in its representation of people and their mask-like faces, which in some cases are distorted and flattened into angular elements in which figuration turns into abstractions and flattened background that are surreal in their scheme of colours and spatial organisation. His compositions depend on certain components represented by wide open spaces broken by circles and triangles and divided by horizontal and vertical lines. His colour scheme is dominated by a combination of muted colours overlaid by darker shades of blue, green and gray and broken with sudden strokes of brighter colours such as red and yellow. Most interesting are his self-portraits, which not only show his self-image and perception of self but also reflect the evolution of his style over the years. Dr Salah M. Hassan