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Ahouansou, Simplice  

Beninese, 20th – 21st century, male.

Born 1964.

Painter (mixed media).

Simplice Ahouansou is self-taught. In a manner that shows affinities with Surrealism, some of his paintings comment with irony on certain aspects of modern Western civilisation, such as communication, or protection of private property, while other works seem more firmly anchored in the artistic traditions of his native country of Benin....

Article

Art and Freedom  

S. J. Vernoit

[Arab. Al-fann wa’l-ḥurriyya]

Egyptian group of Surrealist writers, artists and intellectuals founded on 9 January 1939 by the poet Georges Hunain (1914–73). The group included the Egyptian painters Ramsis Yunan (1914–66), Fu’ad Kamil (1919–73) and Kamil al-Talamsani (1917–72). Inspired by the work of André Breton, whom Hunain met in Paris in 1936, the aim of the group was to defend freedom in art by stressing the liberating role of the individual imagination. On 22 December 1938 Hunain and his colleagues signed a manifesto entitled ‘Vive l’Art Dégénéré’, which protested against Fascism, particularly Hitler’s claim that modern art was degenerate. The manifesto was followed by further writings, conferences and debates. Artists from the group exhibited work in June 1939 at the premises of Art and Freedom at 28 Shari‛ al-Madabigh in Cairo. In January 1940 the magazine al-Ta ṭawwur was launched, which presented ideas behind modern art to an Egyptian audience. This was followed in ...

Article

Guglielmi, O. Louis  

Adam M. Thomas

[Osvaldo Luigi]

(b Cairo, Egypt, April 9, 1906; d Amagansett, NY, Sept 3, 1956).

American painter of Italian origin. After residing in Europe, his family relocated to New York in 1914. Guglielmi studied at the National Academy of Design from 1920 to 1925 and became a naturalized citizen in 1927. He arrived at his first mature painting style in the early 1930s. Guglielmi was among the principal practitioners of Social Surrealism, an American variant of European Surrealist art that adapted some of its imagery and techniques but eschewed its sexual symbolism and psychic automatism. Guglielmi rooted his pictures in the physical world in order to address social and political issues but, unlike Social Realism, did so through the use of unexpected or irrational juxtapositions and disorienting variations in scale. Although Guglielmi was not actively engaged in politics, many of his paintings contain expressly political, if sometimes ambiguous, content, such as Phoenix (The Portrait in the Desert) (1935; Lincoln, U. NE, Sheldon Mem. A.G.), in which a foreground portrait of Vladimir Lenin presides over a deserted landscape of factories and rubble....

Article

Lakhdar, Belgacem  

Tunisian, 20th century, male.

Born 1937, in Tunis.

Painter.

Belgacem Lakhdar graduated from the Tunis school of fine arts in 1961 and from the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1965. His work has connections with Surrealism in its choice of imagery and air of strangeness. However, he is a Surrealist more in style than true affinity, as he did not seriously subscribe to the practice of automatic writing that was so important for the Surrealist movement....

Article

Mahoud, Gamal  

Egyptian, 20th century, male.

Born 1924, in Cairo.

Painter.

Gamal Mahoud attended classes in fine arts at Cairo University, then obtained a scholarship for the fine arts studio in Luxor. He has exhibited in Egypt and abroad: at the 1947 Surrealist exhibition in Paris; in Vienna (...

Article

Soler, Jean-Paul  

French, 20th century, male.

Born in Algeria.

Painter.

The paintings of Jean-Paul Soler are surrealist and mystical, and are intended as a reflection of the human soul.

Article

Zaalouk, Mona  

Egyptian, 20th century, female.

Active in France since 1985.

Born in Egypt.

Painter. Designs for tapestries.

Mona Zaalouk was a student of Fouad Kamel, one of the precursors of Surrealism and Abstract art in Egypt, and a friend of Breton. She began by making tapestries from the thick woollen thread used by nomads to weave their clothes. She then devoted herself to painting, using sand, rocks and minerals for her colours....