Lot 205: GAZBIA SIRRY (EGYPT, B. 1925)

From the Balcony in Rome
signed and dated in Arabic (lower centre)
oil on canvas
34 1/4 x 25 3/4 in. (87.5 x 65.5cm.)
Painted in 1952

Gazbia Sirry was a member of the Group of Modern Art, a movement which sought to express an Egyptian identity, formed at the time of the Egyptian revolution in 1952. In the words of a fellow member, the artist Hamed Oweis (b.1919), they "rejected 'surrealism', because it was essentially a rebellion, or an art which did not aim at the consciousness of the people at large" (Lillian Karnouk, Modern Egyptian Art 1910-2003, Cairo, 1999, p.80). However, unlike Oweis, who concentrated on labour and fellahin (farmers) as subject matter, Sirry's identity was more personal. As she said of herself "As a child I loved my colour crayons, as a teenager I always did what I wanted, as a woman I felt my body was my own, and I was always considered a rebel" (ibid, 1999, p. 85).