Mohamed Riyad Saeed (1937-2008), an icon of Egyptian surrealism from the second half of the 20th century, was born a year after the signing of the Anglo-Egyptian treaty between King Farouk and the British occupiers, which triggered a wave of protests against this alliance, which nationalists rejected.
The thirty masterpieces exhibited at the Al-Mashhad gallery in Zamalek immerse us in a world where dreams intertwine with reality and the hallucinatory with the fantastic. The artist displays boundless imagination. He never tires of combining unexpected and incoherent objects on the same canvas, blending Egyptian culture with Western art.
Best known for his painting Helm Fi Sahet Al-Qods (A Dream at the Walls of Jerusalem), the painter depicts the old city as a bride facing the body of her martyr husband. Saeed has an astonishing ability to embody the suffering of the Palestinians.
The martyr is represented differently in each painting. In one, he appears as an iron mannequin. In another, a hand points the index finger, as one does before dying to bid farewell and affirm the oneness of God. Elsewhere, a white shroud is placed in a coffin, mounted by a crow consumed by the silence of death.
The bread shortage
For Saeed, as with all his peers, surrealism represents a revolt against the established order and social conventions. It is a humanist movement for emancipation without boundaries.
The artist is thus concerned with the human condition, the victims of poverty, colonization, war crimes, and social issues.
"His art aims to counterbalance socio-economic violence, aspiring for more equality, more freedom," reads the exhibition catalog, which includes a study of Saeed by the critic Salah Bissar.
Indeed, the world of the committed artist reflects complex realities and the struggles of his time. Egypt blends with the rest of the world; it is never disconnected from what happens elsewhere.
Surrealist style, realistic content
Although he graduated from the Cairo School of Fine Arts in 1964 and obtained his chair in art at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid in 1976, Saeed firmly believed that art should transcend boundaries. In his works, the Sphinx, as a witness to all ages, is a recurring motif.
The Sphinx is depicted as a witness to Egyptians' misery several times. For instance, it is shown in a painting that otherwise centres on the people's bread uprising against rising prices in the late 1970s. His paintings add a surreal touch to actual events, juxtaposing the mundane with the fantastic. Therefore, items as different as mythical creatures, wine glasses, apple trees, and fish appear alongside one another in his canvases.
Apples, a recurring motif in Saeed's oeuvre, constantly remind us that life is like an apple: crunchy, juicy, and full of surprises.
In his painting The Apple of My Eye, we see an apple, a loaf of bread, and bullets. Here, the apple symbolizes the Adam's apple. The loaf of bread represents life. And the bullets? An element of war. In one of his paintings, Saeed depicts a Sphinx's head with an apple.
The apple and the Sphinx
Great surrealists such as Salvador Dalí and René Magritte, whose influence is easily detected in the work of the Egyptian artist, have also used the apple trope in their art.
Saeed sometimes leans toward neo-expressionism, which marked the 1970s, only to return to figurative painting, with mystical figures in ochre/yellow or sea blue.
Mohamed Riyad Saeed conveys to us the paradoxes of life and the missed opportunities while aspiring for freedom.
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The works will remain displayed at the Al-Mashhad gallery at 23 B, Ismail Mohamad Street, Zamalek, until 27 March (12 pm-9 pm).
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This article was originally published in Al-Ahram Hebdo (French) on 26 March. Translation: Ati Metwaly. Additional edit: Ahram Online
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