Pioneering visual artist Essmat Dawestashy, an iconic figure in Egypt’s contemporary art scene, died last week at the age of 82.
Born in the Alanfoushy district of Alexandria to a family that had arrived in the city from Crete after the First World War, Dawestashy’s work was always closely linked to his hometown. A distinguished student of the legendary Alexandrian artist Seif Wanly (1906-1979), he was one of the pioneering figures in the contemporary art movement in the city, with his work including painting, photography, drawing, and assemblage.
Throughout his work, there is a sincere understanding and employment of popular styles of Egyptian art and the everyday lives of ordinary people. In his prime, his style mirrored his love of collage. His abstract and expressionist body of work abounds with symbols and is distinguished by its inclusion of surrealist motifs and bold colours.
Dawestashy graduated from the Sculpture Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria in 1967, but his passion was always directed towards painting. The political atmosphere at the time would have shaped his visual and artistic tastes, something which is evident from the feeling of confusion and estrangement that often informs his work. In the late 1960s, he traveled to Libya to work in the media and while there held an exhibition in Benghazi.
He was interested in art ever since he was a 10-year-old primary school pupil. His debut exhibition took place in 1962 at his high school in Alexandria and was inaugurated by Wanly. As a professional artist, he held his debut Egyptian exhibition, called “The First Step,” in Cairo in 1982, when it was opened by artist Hassan Soliman.
A number of distinguished exhibitions both inside and outside Egypt followed. Among the most notable were “The Sad Global Faces,” held at the Journalists Syndicate in Cairo in 2004, and “Lovers” at the Egyptian Cultural Centre in Paris in 2021.
In 2023, an exhibition called “Eighty Years of Glowing” was organised by the Visual Arts Sector of the Ministry of Culture to celebrate his 80th birthday. The exhibition included a collection of 170 paintings and drawings that belonged to different stages of his career, starting from the 1960s. He also participated in many international events, including the Sao Paolo Biennale in Brazil.
“Dawestashy and his Acquisitions” was the title of his last exhibition, which took place at the Picasso East Gallery in Cairo earlier this year.
In addition to his involvement in the visual arts, Dawestashy was also interested in cinema and literature. He wrote a range of books on these subjects together with a filmscript, “Silence,” in 1983. His collection of poems, “Words,” was published in 1966. He also wrote “The White Sand,” autobiographical notes on life in Alexandria in the 1940s and 1950s, along with other books.
Calligraphy was part of his artistic practice, and he wove it into some of his paintings.
He also made notable contributions to graphic design, installation, and assemblage art, which drew on his own collection of steel, wooden, and plastic objects that said much about his views of contemporary society.
His interest in experimentation and his expressionist, abstract, and surrealist style is immediately identifiable and cannot be missed.
Among the best-known motifs employed in Dawestashy’s work is al-kaf, which was introduced into his work in the 1970s and appeared periodically from that time onwards. This palm-hand symbol appears in many of his paintings depicting male and female figures raising their hands in the air in what may be a sign of surrender. Whatever the true meaning of the symbol may be, it reveals something of the artist’s identity.
Other motifs like arrows, horses, and crescents also appear in his paintings and refer to his hope for a better future for his beloved country.
A good part of his oeuvre is dedicated to contemporary portraiture. His own collection of paintings includes a large number of self-portraits depicting different stages in his life.
Women were also one of his favoured themes, whether depicted in portraits or as an element in a larger composition. In one of his rare interviews, Dawestashy said that the women depicted in his paintings evoke Egypt in its different political and social stages.
“Islamic Strings” was a significant collection that attempted to present a contemporary format for Islamic art.
In a television interview in 2010, Dawestashy talked about the depression he felt owing to what he saw as the deteriorating political and social circumstances. He then stopped painting. It took him some time after the 25 January Revolution in 2011 to resume, but it was the “Battle of the Camel” in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in February 2011 that inspired him to produce a series of paintings of the attacks on those then occupying the Square and images of the martyrs.
Many valuable studies of his work have been published, including “A Museum in a Book” by critic Sobhy Alsharony and “Rebellious Artists” by editor Tarek Altaher.
In the 2010 TV interview, Dawestashy was quoted as saying that “art is a gift to be born with. When the world was created by God, there was Adam, Eve, and art.”
During his life, he received many awards and prizes, including the Miro Prize from the Spanish Cultural Centre and the French Radio Prize in 1988. More importantly, he won the hearts of other Egyptian artists through his unwavering support for the younger generations, especially in Alexandria, and his intimate meetings and discussions with peers.
These regularly took place on Tuesdays in his studio in Agamy in Alexandria, turned some years ago into a private museum.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 22 May, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
Short link: