HAMED NADA (EGYPT, 1924-1990) The Dancer and the Pyramid oil on board,
Provenienza : Provenance: Property from a private collection, Alexandria Originally gifted to Dr Mosatafa Abdel-Moity (Director of the Accademia D’Egitto in Rome) by the artist himself Acquired directly by the present owner from the above in the late 1990s My father used to speak to me a lot about insane saints and dervishes. So, like everybody else, I would kiss their hands, seeking their blessings and wanting to satisfy God and the jinn as well. My more critical nature took over as I grew older. I also read voraciously in psychology, and fell in love with Freud and Adler’s analyses of pathologic behavior hiding behind a veil of normalcy and familiarity. Then, I started to recognize the tragicomic contradiction between appearance and reality of life in the folk milieu. I also realized the amount of sterility and emptiness in the characters of the people who sat for long hours in coffee houses smoking shisha solemnly, drinking cups of tea, gazing absently at a distance. I would go to do whatever I had to do and come back to find them sitting on their chairs, without the slightest indication of movement, as if they were made from the same rock from which ancient Egyptian statutes were carved, as if they were persons whose destiny is made of granite. Those totally shaved heads, zalata [pebble] as people called them. Those palms with thick fingers. Big feet in cheap red and yellow slippers – all seemed to me to contain some comic contradiction. Many manifestations of folk life started to give me a smile, but whenever I contemplated them, I shook my head in sorrow and compassion. Hamed Nada
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