Effat Nagy

Biography

In 1964, among the works shown at the exhibition devoted to the High Dam (the Aswan Dam), were pictures by Effat Nagy. A year earlier she had been invited, with sixty-three other artists, to record what would soon go under water when the dam was built. What exactly she painted at the first stage is hard to say, but later, judging by descriptions, she made a series of graphic works in white and black acrylic on board, for example “The High Dam” (1966) and “Les Formes Mécaniques” (1966): they resemble construction drawings, and there are no people in them.

She was born in Alexandria on 5 April 1905, into a wealthy family. Her full name was Effat Mousa Nagy.

Her education at home included music, mathematics and French literature. She began to draw in her youth: her older brother, the artist Mohamed Nagy (born in 1888), noticed her talent, and a private tutor was found for her. In 1937, by some accounts, she received a scholarship from the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, unusual for a woman of that time, and set about studying the heritage of different periods of Egyptian history. In 1945 she married the artist and researcher Saad El-Khadem. His work on Egyptian traditions, popular culture and folklore became a constant source of subjects for her. Systematic study came later: in 1947, when she was forty-two, she entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. There, by some accounts, she studied sculpture, fresco and decorative arts, and she stayed in Italy until 1949. Afterwards she studied with the Cubist André Lhote, with whom she turned to Egyptian archaeology. According to some sources, they met in Paris in 1949 and worked together for a year; according to others, her brother invited Lhote to Egypt, and she worked under his direction for several months, travelling with him to the pharaonic temples and to Nubia.

Her first solo exhibition was held in Alexandria in 1948. Then came Cairo (1956), the Museum of Fine Arts in Alexandria (1957), Florence and Rome (1962), a gallery in Switzerland (1971), the French Cultural Centre in Alexandria (1976), the Mashrabia gallery in Cairo (1987) and an exhibition marking fifty years of her work at the Al-Qandeel gallery (1992). By some accounts, she represented Egypt at the Venice Biennale in 1950, 1952 and 1956.

Her early period shows the influence of Fauvism: she painted the everyday life of peasants, their work and their festivals. In the late 1950s her manner changed: an interest in the history and popular culture of Egypt led her to bright colour and simplified forms and figures. In 1956 her brother told her that her work was better than his own, because he felt himself held back by his academic training. In 1968 the Mohamed Nagy Museum was founded, and she donated forty of her brother’s paintings to its collection.

Effat Nagy died on 4 October 1994; some accounts give 1997. The place of death is given as Cairo, but according to other accounts it was her house in Alexandria. She left the house to the Egyptian state, and the publication of her biography was paid for by the French government. In Cairo there is the Museum of Saad El-Khadem and Effat Nagy: about two hundred paintings and pieces of pottery, twenty-four paintings by Effat, thirty-four by her husband (among them a large nude for which she was the model), and their library of books on folklore and astrology. Her work was shown at the exhibition “Arab Presences” at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris in 2024 and at the 60th Venice Biennale.