Gazbia Sirry (Egypt, 1925-2021) A Woman with Water Pots
Provenance : Provenance: Property from a private collection, Beirut Acquired from Zamalek Gallery, 2005, Cairo, directly from the collection of the artist Exhibited: Cairo, Museum of Modern Art, Gazbia Sirry: First Solo Exhibition, Egypt, 1953 Zamalek Gallery, Masterpieces III, 2005, Cairo Published: Mursi Saad El-Din, Gazbia Sirry: Lust for Color, AUC Press, 1998, illustrated in black and white Fatenn Mostafa Kanafani, Gazbia Sirry: When Modern Arab Form Meets Politics, post: notes on art in a global context, MoMa, New York, 2021 A rare and exquisite 1951 painting exhibited at Gazbia's landmark first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Cairo, the earliest work by the artist ever to come to auction 'I am obsessed by the human condition. I see humanity everywhere: in houses, in plants, in patterns.. so the content is always human and ordinary, even if a little fantastic...' - Gazbia Sirry 'In this series of paintings, Sirry calls upon the sacred light of ancient Egyptian temples, the rich colour of Coptic textiles, and the geometric themes of Islamic art. Playing with light and darkness, she repeats and juxtaposes vibrant motifs and patterns on walls, floors, and clothes' - Fatenn Mostafa Kanafani 'In the first stage of Gazbia's career, which lasted about twelve years from 1948, she produced a series of oil painting dealing with subjects from daily life that charm the viewer. Keen on achieving balance between lines, forms and structure, colours are selected from the favourite colours of the material of popular clothes – thus all elements of the work unite in great harmony' - Aime Azar 'She graduated in 1949 from the institute of fine arts and began to exhibit in 1951. At that time, a decidedly figurative painting was connected to descriptions of social reality: women with profound Egyptian eyes in iconic compositions' - Carmine Sinisicalco'A Woman with Water Pots' (1951) stands as a defining early masterpiece by Gazbia Sirry, one of Egypt's most influential modernist painters. Created during the formative years of her career and exhibited in her landmark first solo show at the Museum of Modern Art in Cairo, this work captures Sirry's deeply humanistic and socially engaged vision - a world where the ordinary becomes iconic, and the daily life of women is rendered with dignity, power, and timeless presence.In this painting, a woman stands alongside a collection of water pots - banal, utilitarian vessels elevated here into near-sacred icons. They are arranged almost like ceremonial objects, echoing still life compositions from European modernism but firmly rooted in Egyptian domestic ritual. Sirry charges the moment with a quiet monumentality: the figure is still, flat, and frontal - part of her early visual language influenced by Coptic textiles, ancient frescoes, and pharaonic stelae. The patterned dress, tablecloth, and striped curtain in the background build a dense network of motifs and textures, drawing from the decorative vocabulary of vernacular Egyptian art while asserting a modernist commitment to surface and symbol.Sirry's work from this period can be compared to the emotional immediacy of Gauguin's Vahine no te vi and the decorative boldness of Matisse's Méditation - Après le bain. Like Gauguin, Sirry elevates the everyday female subject to a position of mythic stillness, imbuing her with symbolic weight. Similarly to Matisse, she finds resonance in pattern and colour as both form and expression, drawing attention to the interior lives of her subjects through the environments they inhabit.But where Gauguin exoticised and Matisse idealised, Sirry localised. Her women are not muses or abstractions but figures of labour, dignity, and introspection - reflective of a broader engagement with the struggles of common women in post...
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Condition_report : in very good overall condition, the work has recently been professionally cleaned to remove surface dirt, old discoloured varnish and to consolidate small losses around the outer edges and is now in very good condition and ready to be displayed, there are two small hairline splits on the surface (photographed in this report: top right and bottom right) which can be restored if necessary, please find the restorers comments below: 'there was a layer of old discoloured dripping varnish on the artwork, which must have been applied whilst the painting was horizontal. When the old varnish was removed the paint surface beneath was significantly lighter, treatment involved removing the discoloured varnish and securing the cracked and detached areas around the outer edge. The losses were carefully filled in and retouched to integrate with the surrounding area'
