Menhat Helmy and the Emergence of Egyptian Women Art Teachers and Artists in the 1950s

Abstract

The rise of Egyptian women artists and art teachers at the end of the 1940s appeared in tandem with an active women’s movement that asserted the agency of women in modern Egyptian public life. In this article, we discuss the art career of Menhat Helmy (1925–2004), a 1949 arts graduate of the ma`had al-ali li-ma`lumat al-funun al-jamila (Higher Institute for Women Teachers of the Fine Arts), located in the working-class district of Bulaq in Cairo, and who was among the first Egyptian graduates of the Slade School of Art in London. In a series of etchings executed from around 1956 and through the 1960s, Helmy produced a visual commentary on the dignity of Bulaq’s residents, with emphasis on the active presence of women in its neighborhood and public spaces. Helmy may be viewed in context with the feminism of her fellow women artists, including Gazbia Sirry (1925–2021) and Inji Efflatoun (1924–1986), and in relation to Efflatoun’s two books on feminist causes. As new professional artists and teachers, they advocated the promotion of education and vocational choice for women. Helmy’s choice of this neighborhood as a subject for art allows a comparison to theories about Bulaq’s development and its locus for the arts for which a multidisciplinary approach is required.

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“…His participation in this particularly significant exhibition in the history of Ethiopian modern art, as well as his embrace of the modern style of expression having trained in Paris, earned him the reputation as the first modern artist in Ethiopia (Bekele, 2007). Menhat Helmy (1925), Mahmoud Mukhtar (1891-1934), Gazbia Sirry (1925-2021), Inji Efflatoun (1924-1986), and Ghada Amer (b.1963) are a few of the names one keeps encountering in different researchers' construction of Egyptian modern art history (LaDuke, 1989;Auricchio, 2001;Okeke-Agulu, 2006;Ogbechie, 2018;Seggerman, 2019;Kane, 2022). Even more significant in this case, is the pivotal role that women played in the development and sustenance of modern art in Egypt (Kane, 2022;Okeke-Agulu, 2006).…”

“…Menhat Helmy (1925), Mahmoud Mukhtar (1891-1934), Gazbia Sirry (1925-2021), Inji Efflatoun (1924-1986), and Ghada Amer (b.1963) are a few of the names one keeps encountering in different researchers' construction of Egyptian modern art history (LaDuke, 1989;Auricchio, 2001;Okeke-Agulu, 2006;Ogbechie, 2018;Seggerman, 2019;Kane, 2022). Even more significant in this case, is the pivotal role that women played in the development and sustenance of modern art in Egypt (Kane, 2022;Okeke-Agulu, 2006). For instance, Okeke-Agulu (2006) argues that Gazbia Sirry is a great example of women who, through their work, have immensely "contributed to the discourse of nationalism, cultural emancipation, gender politics, and individual freedoms within the sovereign, modern state."…”

“…For instance, Okeke-Agulu (2006) argues that Gazbia Sirry is a great example of women who, through their work, have immensely "contributed to the discourse of nationalism, cultural emancipation, gender politics, and individual freedoms within the sovereign, modern state." A major highlight of her contribution is the co-establishment of the Group of Modern Art (GMA) in 1948 with fellow young artists such as Ghada Amer, who were her contemporaries (Okeke-Agulu, 2006;Ogbechie, 2018;Kane, 2022).…”