
Noor Soussi
Head of Department




£35,000 - £50,000

Head of Department

Group Head

Sale Coordinator
Provenance:
Property from a private collection, Cairo
Formerly in the collection of the Egyptian poet and author Georges Henein
Published:
Aimé Azar, La peinture moderne en Egypte, Cairo: Editions nouvelles, 1961, p.51
An extremely rare and sought-after 1941 work by Kamel El-Telmissany, published in Aimée Azar's 1961 "La Peinture Moderne en Égypte" and formerly in the collection of the renowned poet Georges Henein, co-founder of the Art et Liberté movement
"Humanism is one of the key issues addressed in modern art and, I believe, the most important and worthy of deep investigation. Humanism is the defining characteristic of Free Art, which seeks to illuminate areas obscured by the narrowness of politics — politics that limit art and, without doubt, strip it of its most essential qualities — in order to prioritise the expression of life's true meaning and its painful realities.
Art is not a tool for people's amusement or a means of bringing joy to idle minds. Cheerfulness stands far from humanism and from the reality of life, which breaks down and collides with hardship every single day. This bold call, rising from the rubble, was voiced by many — some of them part of the new Free Art movement, and others in humanist literature before it. Among those who called for it were the Russians Korsakov and Dostoevsky."
- Kamel El-Telmissany