Al Masar Gallery | Contemporary Art
His Excellency the minister of Culture & artist Farouk Hosny will kindly inaugurate the exhibition
18th October – 9 November 2009
Mahmoud Afifi, Graduated from the Faculty of Arts, 1940, thereafter in 1955 he received a diploma in painting in Rome, Italy. Afifi began his adventure in art when he was at the age of 10, when he only drew pencil portraits, and later he started using water colors and swiftly moved to oil paintings until he gained complete control using his brush over the canvas. Afifi was guided by the great mentor Hamed Said, who made him join his well-known art assembly in 1946. Their mission was to go back to the origins and blend with nature. The uniqueness about Afifi’s work is the strong, solid and thick black lines to define the figures, which is known as the ”Hard Edge” style. The legend George Rouault (1871-1951) used the same technique. Thus we call Afifi the ”Egyptian Rouault.” Afifi gained about twenty years of experience by working at Al Ghoury Agency till he became the director of the handicrafts division and directed the Society of Al Ghoury artists after the death of its founder the late sculpture Abd El Hamid Hamdy. The pulse of life of the Egyptian people can be felt in Afifi’s paintings, such as romance, family and recent historical wars. Especially the political events in Egypt were on his mind. Thus he went into a phase where he passionately started to symbolize Egyptian battles on his canvas, where he daringly painted the Egyptian alliance against the enemy, such as the Salah El Din battle and the Rashid battle. Another phase was sport which was after his participation in the biennale in Spain in the 60′. The art of Afifi sometimes gives the illusion of joint glass windows, whereas his expressionist paintings are full of shape and distinct with grace and proficiency.
