Biography
Ezzedine Hamouda was an accomplished painter who played a central role in shaping artistic theory and tendencies in Egypt after the Free Officers’ Coup of 1952. The dramatic social and political changes underway in Egypt during the late 1940s and early 1950s and his understanding of art’s role vis-à-vis society reflected his Leftist political commitments. Still, they did not have echoes in his practice. Instead, he is remembered today for his distinct portraits of –Egyptian women, often upper class– and vivid birds-eye view landscapes of Spain and Egypt.
Critics have referred to his portraits as sphinx-like, affectless in their expression, and with tilted, blank, almond-shaped eyes and elongated necks and limbs reminiscent of paintings by Amadeo Modigliani and Moise Kisling. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Hamouda's portraits became increasingly reminiscent of Byzantine icons with the application of silver and gold leaf around the space of his figures. Meanwhile, the artist's landscapes (and some of the landscapes in the backgrounds of his portraits) recall Fauvist paintings' vibrant palette and heavy, black contour lines. Over the 1950s, the contour lines became increasingly prominent, mirroring the effect of a leaded stained-glass window and recalling again the influence of late Byzantine art in his practice. Beginning in the 1970s, these lines proliferated across the surface of the canvas, fragmenting the subject matter of landscape and architectural structures until they dissolved entirely into abstract compositions.
After pursuing two years of coursework as an architecture student, Hamouda switched tracks, graduating in 1945 from the painting department of Cairo’s Higher School of Fine Arts (al-Madrasa al-‘Uliyya li-l-Funun al-Jamila), where he studied with “Pioneer-generation” artists Ahmed Sabri (1889–1955) and Youssef Kamel (1891–1971). The same year, he joined the Graduates of the College of Fine Arts Group (Jama‘iyat Khariji Kulliyat al-Funun al-Jamila, est. 1945). He participated in the exhibition organised by the Voice of the Artist group (Jama‘at Sawt al-Fannan, est. 1946), a short-lived initiative founded by sculptor Gamal El Seguini (1917–1977). The latter was significant primarily, Hamouda would later claim, in its role as a “preamble” to the establishment of the Modern Art Group (Jama‘at al-Fann al-Hadith, 1947–1955) the following year under the direction of the critic Youssef al-‘Afifi who had a pedagogical emphasis in the art. Artists associated with the group, many recent graduates of the Teachers’ Training Institute (Ma‘had al-Tarbiyya li-l-Mu‘allamin) in Cairo, sought to create a school of modern art native to the Egyptian context. The latter was to be developed in opposition to the old-fashioned, “academic” style of art still taught in Egyptian schools and universities, as well as the Surrealist tendencies of the Art and Liberty group (Art et Liberté, or Jama‘at al-Fann wa-l-Hurriya, est. 1938), which the Modern Art Group viewed as an insalubrious European import.
This new art was to serve as a means, said Hamouda, “to awaken the minds of the people” from the effects of colonialism and its depredations. The modern artist was, by definition, free of the latter and, therefore, able to produce a “realist art” (fann waqi‘y) by capturing the spirit or essence of their time and place and the society of which they were a part. In contrast, the documentarian and the academic artist produced only superficial transcriptions of the world around them. Hamouda associated the aim of realist art with a choice of subject matter rather than form, style, or medium. The Egyptian modern artist, he believed, was free to adopt modern European art techniques and approaches in producing images of Egypt and developing an intrinsically Egyptian work of art. While Hamouda tended to focus on landscapes in this vein, other group members portrayed working and middle-class Egyptians or local craft and folk arts. Many members of the group are remembered today as among Egypt’s most celebrated artists, including El Seguini, and his then-wife Zeinab Abdel Hamid (1919–2002), Daoud Aziz (dates unknown), William Ishaq (dates unknown), Saad El Khadem (1932–2003), Hamed Oweis (1919–2011), Youssef Sida (1922–1924), Gazbia Sirry, Salah Yousri (1923–1984). After the group disbanded in 1955, Hamouda founded the short-lived New Egyptian Reality Group (Jama‘at al-waq‘iyya al-misriyya al-jadida): the choice of name recalling his earlier theorisation of a new Egyptian modern art. An exhibition organised under the auspices of the group opened in February 1956 at the Museum of Modern Art (Mathaf al-Funun al-Jamila) in Cairo before moving to the Cultural Center (al-Markaz al-Thaqafi) in Alexandria.
In 1949, Hamouda received a grant from the Egyptian state to support his studies at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid. He spent the first six months travelling between Spain and France before receiving a diploma in art (drawing) instruction from the Academia in 1952. Upon his return to Egypt, Hamouda embraced the post-Revolution, nation-building initiatives in the arts developed under President Gamal Abdel Nasser, who was in power from 1954 to 1970, and his successor, Anwar El Sadat, who ruled Egypt between 1970 and 1981. Hamouda participated as an artist, arts educator, critic, and arts consultant representing the Egyptian state at high-profile international events of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. He worked consistently as a teacher at the Higher School (subsequently, Faculty) of Fine Arts in Cairo between 1945 and 1976. The state assigned him as a cultural advisor to the Egyptian embassy in Mexico in 1964. Between 1969 and 1972, Hamouda was a cultural advisor to the Egyptian embassy in Spain and Director of the Egyptian Institute of Islamic Studies (Instituto Egipcio de Estudios Islámicos/Ma‘had al-Misri li-l-Dirasat al-Islamiyya) in Madrid. The Institute was inaugurated in 1950 by famed Egyptian intellectual and Minister of Education Taha Hussein (1889–1973) to fortify the links between Egypt and its broader Mediterranean heritage. In 1972, Hamouda was awarded the title of “Commander” of “La Orden del Mérito Civil” by the Spanish Government.
