Mahmoud Mokhtar

1891-1934

32 avenue Marceau 75008 Paris | +33 (0)1 42 61 42 10 | +33 (0)6 07 88 75 84 | contact@galeriearyjan.com | galeriearyjan.com
 Mahmoud Mokhtar
1891-1934

Biography

Today recognized as the father of modern sculpture in Egypt, Mahmoud Mokhtar is known as the
initiator of a disruption with academism and orientalism, to the benefit of a national art inherited from
the Pharaonic era. Deeply committed to the anti-imperialist nationalist movement, he has dedicated his
work to this cause.

Mahmoud Mokthar was born in 1891 in Tunbarah, near the Al-Mahallah al-Kubra delta, to an Egyptian
farming family. Very early on, the artist developed a particular sensitivity for the modelling of the
material. He discovered this mode of expression on the banks of the Nile, known for their production of
silt, a black soil brought by the flood. From an early age, he shaped, modelled and created figurines in
this fertile mud characteristic of the region. Only a few years later, he was led to leave his native village
to join his mother and two sisters in Cairo in 1902. He learned Arabic and French.

Attracted by the art world, he chose, in 1908, to join the studio of Guillaume Laplange, a French
sculptor and first director of the Cairo School of Fine Arts. His teacher passed on his academic style to
him. At the age of 21, after graduating in Egypt, he moved to France in order to learn alongside Antoine
Bourdelle and Jules-Félix Coutan at the School of Fine Arts in the city of Paris. However, the
pedagogical methods of his teachers were essentially based on a very classical teaching, relying on the
observation of ancient sculptures. Mokhtar, attached to his origins, chose to detach himself from them in
order to incorporate the aesthetics of Egyptian themes into the heart of his productions. During this
period of study, the artist's living conditions, then living in the centre of Paris, remained modest. Indeed,
he was forced to develop other subordinate activities in order to continue to devote himself to the
practice of sculpture, the latter not allowing him to provide for his own needs.

However, at the end of the First World War, his career took a different direction. He was invited to
replace Guillaume Laplange, his first master: on this occasion, he held the position of artistic director at
the Musée Grévin, dedicated to the creation of wax figures bearing the effigy of public figures. He
sculpts the statues of great names such as Georges Clémenceau, Woodrow Wilson, or the dancer Anna
Pavalova. In this context, he created a representation of the Egyptian singer Oum Kalthoum.

In Paris, the artist met Saad Zaghloul, Egyptian Prime Minister and leader of the Independence Party.
This meeting is decisive for Mokthar. Indeed, in 1919, the sculptor attended from France, the Revolution
agitating Egypt, which stood against the British occupation. Particularly affected, he chose to shape a
committed work, which he named Nahdat Misr, meaning "The rebirth of Egypt". His model won a gold
medal at his exhibition in the Grand-Palais that same year. Its creation then became the symbol of this
emancipated contemporary Egypt. Translated into a monumental format, the latter was initially
inaugurated in the centre of Bab el-Habib Square, then moved to Cairo University in 1928. Moreover, in
1924, upon his return to Cairo, the artist brought together revolutionary artists and intellectuals
advocating Egypt's independence.

Another emblematic creation of Mokthar's work: this female subject entitled Au bord du Nil. A hieratic
pose, a jug carried on the head, feet together, face with pure lines, draped in an antique style
reminiscent of those of Queen Hatshepsut's figurations, flanked at the entrance to her tomb: here we
find the aesthetics of ancient sculptures from Ancient Egypt. In the same way, we also perceive the
influence of the Art-Deco movement, initiated in the 1910s, which was fully established around 1920.
This last trend, opposing the organic forms of Art Nouveau, returns to simple, stylized forms with refined
lines. We find all these characteristics at the heart to this water carrier created by Mokthar. Through this

32 avenue Marceau 75008 Paris | +33 (0)1 42 61 42 10 | +33 (0)6 07 88 75 84 | contact@galeriearyjan.com | galeriearyjan.com
 Mahmoud Mokhtar
1891-1934

work, the artist communicates to us his strong political commitment: We perceive the determination of
this female figure, who seems unbreakable. With the gaze set in front of her, this figure is not
embodying the allegorical image of a fertile and independent Egypt, which is established by the work of
its land?

Museums
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou

Bibliography
GOLDSCHMIDT, Arthur J. JOHNSON, A. SALMONI, Barak, Re-envisioning Egypt, 1919-1952, The
American University in Cairo Press, New York, 2005.
PIVIN, Jean Loup, An anthology of Africain art : the twentieth century, D.A.P., Distributed Art Publ.,
2002.

32 avenue Marceau 75008 Paris | +33 (0)1 42 61 42 10 | +33 (0)6 07 88 75 84 | contact@galeriearyjan.com | galeriearyjan.com