Biography
Cléa Badaro was born into a wealthy family of Greek origin. Her happy childhood in Cairo’s Zamalek neighbourhood was brutally interrupted by her mother's death and the bankruptcy of her father, a lawyer. These events led Badaro, then five years old, and her sister Jeanne, to leave Egypt for Switzerland with their father. Their education was entrusted to their maternal grandmother, residing in Montreux. The latter encouraged Cléa Badaro to practice the piano. Balancing her passion for music and drawing, she enrolled at the École cantonale des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne against her father and grandmother’s advice. From 1930 to 1934, she was educated there and specialised in poster design under the direction of the Swiss painter, illustrator, and decorator Jean-Jacques Mennet (1889–1969). She was also introduced to academic practices, such as nude drawing from a live model. Still a student, she was commissioned to design posters for Joséphine Baker, then on tour in Switzerland, and the beer brand Stella, among others. She also won the school's graduation competition with a poster titled Egypt, which the Egyptian Ministry of Communications later acquired.
In 1934, Cléa Badaro returned to Egypt and settled in Alexandria. She actively participated in the cosmopolitan port city's artistic, cultural, and social life throughout her lifetime. During World War II, she took part in hospital care and served as a sutler. During this period, she painted sailors and soldiers –for instance, the Mathaf Al-Funun al-Gamila (Fine Arts Museum) in Alexandria holds in its collection a café scene staging two characters seated with a young sailor in uniform. In 1938, she joined the Atelier d'Alexandrie, where she became a central figure. The Atelier d’Alexandrie, which brought together painters, writers, sculptors, and poets, was one of the leading places of cultural influence in 20th-century Egypt. Badaro had a studio there where she worked daily, notably in the company of her friend, the sculptress Gaby Cremisi (1912–1987). She illustrated several brochures and posters to promote the Atelier’s activities. She also painted stage sets for shows, of which no trace remains. At the Atelier, she spent time with the famous painter Mahmoud Said, whom she admired. The clear line and frank palette that characterise Badaro's paintings probably owe as much to her interest in Said's works as her beginnings as an illustrator.
Human figures, particularly female figures, are central in Badaro’s paintings. It is primarily to her circus and show scenes developed in the 1940s, and more precisely to her horsewomen, female dancers, and musicians, that Badaro owes her reputation. The faces with large eyes and straight noses, mounted on robust necks and drooping shoulders, were invented by the artist who worked without a model. Sharing similar features, the characters across her paintings are variations of a canon marking all her productions.
A trip to the Dolomites in the Northern Italian Alps 1948 gave rise to a series of landscapes, a genre that remained marginal in Badaro’s production. In Egypt, she focused more on the people in the countryside than on the landscapes. Several works show Bedouin and peasant women in similar group compositions. Their stylised silhouettes rise like columns, structuring the canvas vertically. They are often accompanied by babies and children, placing Badaro's paintings in an abundant body of works composed of modern Egyptian motherhood scenes. Badaro's tendency to represent women in groups was manifested in the early 1960s by the recurring theme of "the two girlfriends”.
Cléa Badaro died in 1968 of the same illness as her husband, who passed seven years before her, Giovanni Di Pietro, an Italian art bookbinder and restorer of paintings. Her death coincided with the decline of cosmopolitan Egypt, which was celebrated by the British writer Lawrence Durrell. As a tribute, he gave her name, Clea, to the fourth volume of his novel The Alexandria Quartet (1957–1960). Although she never recognised herself in the character, she became, for posterity, "Clea of Alexandria."
A regular at Egyptian artistic events such as the yearly salon of the Atelier d'Alexandrie and the Salon du Caire, Cléa Badaro led a career that reflects her Alexandrian roots with an international dimension. She participated in the 26th Venice (1952), the 2nd São Paulo (1953), and the 6th Alexandria (1965) Biennials. She also participated in an exhibition of Alexandrian artists in the USSR in 1966. In 1947, she had her first solo exhibition in Cairo. Her last known show took place in 1965 at the Atelier d’Alexandrie. Posthumous retrospectives of her work were organised at the Atelier d’Alexandrie in 1969 and at the Centre Culturel Français in Alexandria in 1972. In 1974, the André Weil Gallery in Paris dedicated a solo exhibition to her, organised by her sister Jeanne Badaro (known after her marriage as Princess Engalytscheff).
Jeanne Badaro endeavoured to gather documentation and promote her sister’s work after her death. The latter had kept no files of her exhibitions and artistic activities. The lack of archives adds to the fact that her paintings were rarely dated, complicating historians' work at the expense of a better understanding of Cléa Badaro’s life and work.
