The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist’s family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy’s groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven’t already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

More than forty years after her work was last seen in India, Menhat Helmy returns to the country’s art scene through Resonant Histories: India and the Arab World, a groundbreaking new exhibition opening next month.

The exhibition, which opens on Nov. 14, 2025, presents artworks by pioneering modern artists from the collections of Barjeel Art Foundation and the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, staged in dialogue, illuminating cross-cultural encounters that continue to shape artistic and intellectual discourse today.

According to the press release, the exhibition brings together “seminal Arab artists who lived, trained, or exhibited in Indian cities such as New Delhi, Mumbai, and Santiniketan. Their engagements — whether through participation in the Triennale-India, training with Indian instructors, or shared association with the ideals of the Non-Aligned Movement — underscore the layered intersections of identity, colonial history, and modernity in their work.”

The exhibition features works by artists from Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and India, presenting a varied constellation of voices and perspectives. Helmy’s work will be featured alongside notable contemporaries like Abdul Qader Al Rais, Dia al-Azzawi, Inji Efflatoun, Mariam Abdel-Aleem, Marwan Kassab-Bachi,Mona Hatoum, Rafa Al Nasiri, and Saadi Al-Kaabi, among countless others.

“Resonant Histories aims to serve as a node in the broader research on modern histories in India and the Arab world, offering avenues for further scholarship, and inviting researchers to build on the questions raised by objects on display,” read the press release. “By calling attention to ties in the cultural milieu, the exhibition encourages a deeper understanding of the interconnected socio-political histories and shared experiences that continue to resonate in the art and life of both regions today.”

The last time my grandmother’s work went on display in India was during the Fifth Triennale India in 1982, where she helped curate the Egyptian pavilion at the event.

These were the participating Egyptian artists at the time:

It has been exactly 43 years since Helmy’s work has gone on display in India. If you happen to live near Mumbai, or are planning to visit in the near future, don’t miss this rare opportunity to view some of my grandmother’s masterpieces alongside other great Arab artists.

Exhibition Details

Dates: 14 November 2025 - 15 February 2026

Venue: Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, CSMVS, Mumbai

Curated by: Puja Vaish and Suheyla Takesh

Catalogue: To be released in early 2026

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist’s family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy’s groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven’t already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

When Menhat Helmy was a young, carefree girl in the 1930s, she was among the countless children across Egypt who eagerly awaited the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday—al-Mawlid al-Nabawi—to enjoy the delicious treats that marked the occasion. Perhaps none were more eagerly anticipated than Arousat al-Mawlid: the ceremonial sugar dolls that served as the highlight of the festivities.

Traditionally made with sugar and water, the dolls would be molded into the shape of a woman before being bedazzled in colourful bridal gowns and headpieces. They decorated sweet shops across the country in a deeply-rooted historical tradition that dates back to the Fatimid era (909 to 1171 AD). And when the children finally got ahold of them, they broke the dolls into pieces to consume the sweet treat.

As my grandmother grew into a young artist, she never forgot about the sugar dolls. Some of her first etchings after completing her studies at the Slade School of Fine Arts in London depicted the festivities and the sugar dolls.

The above etching, dated September 1958, depicts a shop named “Zeinhoum’s Stores” selling a range of sweets including the renowned sugar dolls, which line flank the sellers. Children can be seen eyeing and purchasing the dolls, some accompanied by their parents. In front of the store lies a woman in traditional conservative clothing breastfeeding in public. While depictions of the Mawlid were not rare in modern Egyptian art, depictions of breastfeeding were. Helmy was among a small cohort of artists, including her contemporaries Gazbia Sirry and Inji Efflatoun, who embedded their art with such intimate acts, bucking norms and traditions that labeled public breastfeeding as taboo.

Helmy’s decision to depict breastfeeding in a scene with Mawlid dolls also carries some interesting symbolism, signifying both motherhood, childhood joy, folk traditions and fertility. Consider the origin tale of the sugar dolls. Historians passed a tale in which on a one specific Mawlid celebration, the Fatimid ruler Ba’amrUllah, dressed up as a soldier while riding a horse and went into the town with his wife along his side. She wore a dazzling white dress with a flower crown on her head. When candy makers saw the beauty of the ruler’s wife, they decided to include her in their depiction, launching a tradition of doll making that would stand the test of time.

Another tale from the Fatimid era promised that soldiers returning from war would be rewarded with beautiful brides for their bravery. Both origin stories frame women as objects of desire and as rewards for masculine prowess. By depicting a conservative woman breastfeeding in front of the sugar dolls, Helmy may be subverting this tradition, offering a more contemporary vision of female empowerment and beauty. She could also have believed, as some experts did, the Mawlid doll is actually tied to the goddess Isis and celebrations of fertility and life.

Helmy’s etchings have also come to depict a bygone Cairo—snapshots of a city that no longer exists in that form. Even the sugar dolls, once a highlight of al-Mawlid festivals, are slowly dying out. But in many shops the edible sugar doll has been replaced with a plastic version, especially in larger cities like Cairo. They are more profitable but lack the creative and artistic flair of their sugary counterparts. Even the public spaces once decorated with colourful ornaments to mark the festivities seem to have disappeared.

In 1956, Helmy etched a scene in a the Bulaq region of Cairo depicting the celebration of the birth of Egyptian Sufi writer and poet Salama Hassan Al-Radi. The founder of the Sufi order Al-Hamidiyah Shadhiliyya, al-Radi was a celebrated figure of the sect, especially in Egypt. His shrine was regularly visited by devoted Sufis and the anniversary of his birth—the mawlid—was celebrated, especially in Bulaq. These scenes no longer exist in Cairo, both because Bulaq has been gentrified over the years and because Sufism’s influence has weaned in comparison to more radical ideologies like Wahhabism, which forbade the visiting of shrines or the celebration of religious figures.

While my grandmother could not have known just how much her beloved city would come to change, her work serves as a snapshot of better times — a bygone age when Egypt’s sprawling capital was defined by its people, not its monuments.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

On a cool, drizzly Sunday in May 2025, I visited MUNCH, the museum dedicated to the life and works of the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944)—best known for arguably the most famous painting in the world, The Scream.

Located along the waterfront in the beautiful Norwegian capital of Oslo, the museum houses well over half of the artist's entire production of paintings and at least one copy of all his prints. This amounted to over 1,200 paintings, 18,000 prints, six sculptures, as well as 500 plates, 2,240 books, and various other items. Spread across 13 floors, the museum is considered to be one of the largest single-artist museums in the world.

Munch’s work is unique, evocative, and in some cases, irresistible to thieves. In fact, The Scream has been stolen twice. A version of the painting was stolen from the National Gallery in Oslo during the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, when two men needed just 50 seconds to steal one of the most famous paintings in history. Adding insult to injury, the thieves left a note scribbled on the back of a postcard that read: "Thanks for the poor security." The priceless painting was recovered a few months later after an undercover sting operation.

In August 2004, another version of “The Scream” was stolen, along with Munch’s “The Madonna,” this time from the Munch Museum in Oslo. Three men were convicted in connection with that theft in May 2006. MUNCH also received major upgrades in security, as safeguarding the artworks had become a matter of national importance. This was immediately evident during my visit. Large bags, umbrellas, and food were prohibited upon entry. Security personnel patrolled the galleries, with several stationed permanently beside Munch’s most famous pieces. Cameras monitored every angle, and motion detectors sounded if anyone ventured too close to the art.

Over the course of four hours, my wife and I made our way through the entire building, weaving between tourists, school groups on field trips, and artists sketching studies of Munch’s work. We saw all of Munch’s most famous works and were enchanted by the various eras and styles that made up his oeuvre. And though he is best known for his paintings, I was surprised to learn that he was also an prolific printmaker.

When the Norwegian artist first tried his hand at printmaking in the late 1800s, graphic works were becoming increasingly popular in the Western art scene. Berlin, where Munch resided at the time, was at the cutting edge of new printing techniques. He therefore began to experiment with lithography, etchings and woodcuts, eventually settling on the latter as his preferred medium.

Printmaking offered Munch the chance to rework and reprise elements from his earlier paintings, allowing him to experiment with various techniques that produced striking results. This was the case with The Scream, which Munch first painted in 1893 before attempting it in print form three years later. At the time, he called the print The Scream of Nature. I had the opportunity to see the print, as well as two other versions of The Scream that Munch painted, during my visit to MUNCH.

The various versions of The Scream—a painting, a drawing and a print—were housed in their own dimly-lit room in the museum. Since Munch had created each version on either cardboard or paper, they were more fragile than oil paintings on canvas. Therefore, the works alternated every 30 minutes; one is always visible while the other two others rest in darkness.

I learned much about Munch’s unique printmaking process on the floor dedicated to his graphic works. Munch had even donated his printmaking tools, as well as the plates, stones, and woodblocks he used to produce the work, none of which were destroyed as was the practice among professional printmakers. This is how researchers figured out his techniques, such as chopping up a wood block with a fretsaw before inking each segment separately, and then fitting them back together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Munch’s graphic works numbers close to 770 different prints. Moreover, the museum houses an astonishing 18,000 prints in total.

What I found most astonishing—and the reason I decided to write this essay—is the museum’s dedication to preserving and representing Munch’s prints. This level of institutional respect is rarely given to prints, which are seen as less grandiose and valuable than oil paintings. With Munch, there appeared to be a consensus that, while his paintings were grand and robust, his prints were intricate and expressive, sometimes revealing a deeper layer to the themes and motifs being discussed.

As the grandson of a pioneering Egyptian printmaker—one overshadowed by colleagues with a penchant for painting—I was touched by the exhibit and, quite frankly, jealous that the Norwegian government had dedicated such vast resources to studying and protecting Munch’s prints. The Munch museum has even digitized the entire collection.

During Menhat Helmy’s lifetime, printmaking was still a highly respected art form. Towering figures such as Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Joan Miró, Max Ernst, Lovis Corinth,Wassily Kandinsky, Andy Warhol and Paul Klee all experimented with various forms of printmaking in the 20th century. They, and countless other artists at the time, helped rejuvenate interest in an ancient practice that dates back thousands of years.

Printmaking also holds a rich history in the Arab world. From Mesopotamian stamp & seal printing to the 17th century lithography presses used to print high quality Qurans, the practice has played a variety of roles throughout the history of the region. However, many of Egypt and the Arab world’s most renowned artists during the 20th century likely learned the various printmaking techniques while studying abroad.

My grandmother was among those artists, as she discovered her love for etchings while studying at the Slade School of Fine Arts in London during the 1950s. She quickly distinguished herself by winning the Slade Prize for Etching in 1955, her final year at the school. When she returned to Cairo, she experimented with various other forms of printmaking, including lithography and woodcuts. Her woodcuts, rarely seen or exhibited, offer fascinating insight into an artist experimenting with a medium she would soon come to master.

While she would continue to paint and experiment with printmaking for the remainder of her career, etchings made up the vast majority of her output. It was through this medium that Helmy distinguished herself as a pioneering artist. She won the Cairo Exhibition Prize in 1957, and two consecutive Salon Du Caire prizes in the early 1960s—all for etchings.

Helmy represented Egypt and the graphic arts on the international stage. She was particularly active in Yugoslavia, having displayed her work at the Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts at least eight times over the course of two decades—more than any other Egyptian artist. Helmy also received an honourable prize from the Ljubljana Organizing Committee for an etching exhibited during her first appearance in 1961. Her continued distinction at the biennale led to her being named an honorary professor at the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence in 1963.

Helmy continued to find success abroad, participating in numerous international biennials across West Germany, Poland, Italy, Japan and India. She even participated in four consecutive editions of the Norwegian International Print Biennale starting in 1978. By 1980, Helmy’s etchings were on display at arguably the most famous biennial of them all: the Venice Biennale. The following year, she was awarded a lifetime achievement award—the National Merit Prize for Etching—by the Egyptian state for her pioneering work in the field.

Despite accumulating accolades and international acclaim, Helmy’s work fell into obscurity following her passing in 2004. Even the works donated to the Egyptian state were left to accumulate dust in the storage facilities of the country’s various museums. While much has changed in the years since the Menhat Helmy Estate was established, if you were to visit the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art in downtown Cairo today, you would only find her paintings on display—not the etchings. While the painting is a stunning work of geometric abstraction, it is an incomplete representation of her oeuvre.

Helmy dedicated herself to a medium that required patience, precision, and an avant-garde approach to experimentation. Her etchings ranged from high modernism, which won her acclaim at Slade and at exhibitions in the Western world, expansive cityscapes brimming with life and character, to complex multi-plate geometric abstraction rarely seen before in the medium.

Thankfully, Helmy’s prints are once again being restored to their rightful place in the pantheon of modern art. A selection of her abstract prints were displayed at the groundbreaking Konkret Global exhibition at the Museum im Kulturspeicher Würzburg, Germany in 2022. Others were exhibited at the Art Cairo show at the Grand Egyptian Museum earlier this year.

This is a step in the right direction and gives me hope for the future—one where Helmy’s prints are as sought after as her paintings, and where the depth of her practice is publicly available for all to appreciate.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

“So how exactly does one pronounce your name?”

Menhat had heard this question before. She had her answer memorized by now but it did not matter. The British never got it right.

“It’s Menhatulla Helmy — as in Men-hat-allah — but you can just call me Menhat.”

The man blinked twice and she could almost see him struggle to register the word behind his pencil-thin moustache and British sensibilities. “Menu-hat, is it? What a charming name. I’m Anthony Gross and I’m delighted we finally have a chance to meet. Bill — I mean Professor Coldstream — brought up your name after I took over as head of the printmaking department so I wanted to meet our only Egyptian etcher,” he said, his moustache stretching as he smiled.

Menhat sat up in her seat, a thousand thoughts flooding her mind. The office seemed to be shrinking in size. Expectations worth their weight in gold settled over her. She forced herself to smile and fiddled with her skirt, which bought her a few seconds to regain her composure. “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Gross. Is there something in particular you would like to talk about?” she asked.

“Let’s start by looking through your portfolio. Bring it here if you don’t mind.”

The heavy beige folder exchanged hands. Mr. Gross untied the knot and opened it with the care and precision of a trained artist. Menhat watched the balding man sift through the artworks, separating each paper and arranging it across his desk. He put on a pair of glasses, occasionally picking up one of the delicate sheets to examine the etching.

Mr. Gross sat back in his chair and lit a cigarette. He did not talk for several minutes, instead choosing to gloss over all the works before him, as though he were attempting to solve a puzzle. Finally, he finished the cigarette and looked up at Menhat. A hint of a smile marked his face.

“You’ve certainly got an eye for detail. Your hand is a little shaky in places and some of the earlier ones are already fading due to poor printing but this is quite something. Did you do any printmaking in Cairo before coming to Slade?”

“No, sir. I actually learned it here. I didn’t want to take architecture or sculpture so I decided to try design. Then I discovered etchings and feel in love with it.”

“Yes, I can see that. Is that Carisbrooke castle?” he said, pointing towards a small print near the edge of the desk.

Menhat nodded. “Lovely. Glad you’re trying your hand at aquatint. Really gives those lines some depth when capturing scenery,” he said.

Mr. Gross continued to pull artwork out of the portfolio — sketches, drawings, and a couple of unstretched canvases with her nude model studies from the life drawing class. And yet he seemed to be captivated by the etchings, his fingers gliding over the cotton paper in short, delicate strokes as he examined the works.

“Did you create these works from pictures?”

Menhat shook her head, “I walk around the city — sometimes as close as Maple street or as far as the Isle of Wight. I take a sketch book with me and draw what I see in front of me. If I like it, I take it to the studio.”

“That explains the attention to detail. But what about this one?” Mr. Gross said, raising a small etching from the pile in front of him. Menhat cringed. There were black marks along the edges and the ink was faded. She could barely make out the fish swimming between the seaweed. A poor example of her work, she thought.

“I sketched that in the antiques room. They said I could draw anything in the room, and — well — I saw the fish tank in the corner and decided I preferred that over the old statues.”

“Ha! Bet they didn’t expect that?”

“Professor Coldstream didn’t know what to make of it, sir. Then when he introduced me to printmaking, I decided it would be my first print. As you see, it wasn’t a great one overall.”

“Yes, well, it certainly isn’t your best, but you capture England with a keen eye. I see why Professor Coldstream mentioned you,’ he said, leaning back in his seat as he lit another cigarette. ‘But do you know which one I’m particularly taken by?’

Mr. Gross pointed to the etching right in front of him. Menhat leaned over and saw a tall print she recognized immediately — The Kamman Player. She remembered that day well. Regent Park, 1954; it was a cloudy day and she was worried it would rain over her sketchbook. She took shelter beneath the hornbeam tree by the stream and continued to draw. She lost herself within her work, each line given equal attention.

Then came the old man with his fiddle. He appeared out of nowhere, dressed in a embroidered vest and a wide-brimmed hat which he tipped in silent greeting. He smiled and asked if he could sit on the bench beside her. Menhat nodded her head and returned to her work. Moments later, she found herself being carried away with the sounds produced out of the wooden instrument. The old man made his fiddle quiver with each note, creating layers of depth and grace that Menhat had not heard in several years. It was the sound of love and loneliness, of unbridled joy and heart-wrenching sadness. It was the sound of home.

Menhat watched the old man bring life to the spike-fiddle, with its ovular body and skewered neck, like the old masters in the Middle East. He rested the wooden instrument on his knee and held it up vertically, much like the kamman played back home. She was mesmerized by his song and soon found herself turning in his direction, her hand still cradling a pencil. She discarded her sketch for the time being and turned to a blank page and began to draw once more. She watched the old man work his magic and allowed her hand to be guided by the sound of his fiddle.

Minutes passed; shapes formed. First a head, then a face, nose, then came the body and the embroidered vest; finally, there was the fiddle, connected as though a part of the man himself. Done. She was pleased with the result and knew shew would be taking this one back to the studio to print.

The sun was beginning to set beneath the clouds. Menhat waited until the old man had finished his song and approached him with the sketchbook. She sat beside him on the bench and showed him the sketch. He laughed — a deep raspy sound unlike the vibrant tones of his fiddle — and asked her name. “Menhat Helmy,” she responded.

“Where are you from Menhat?” the old man asked, and she was shocked to find that he had pronounced her name correctly.

“Cairo.”

“Ahlan wa sahlan,” the old man said, now grinning from ear to ear. “Keif halek?”

The old man’s use of Arabic took Menhat by surprise. She had never encountered a foreigner outside of Egypt who could speak Arabic, let alone someone who could greet her and ask how she was doing. “Ahlan beyk,” she replied, though her tone was more reserved. “Where are you from, sir.”

“Armenia but I live in Lebanon — Anjar mostly,” he said, “I emigrated there from Musa Dagh almost 15 years ago. I sometimes come to London to visit my daughter. She is a citizen here now.”

“London is lovely,” Menhat said. “I’ve enjoyed my time in this city.”

“Yes, yes, me too,” he said, his eyes lingering over the nearby stream. He then turned back to Menhat. “But our countries are better.”

Menhat smiled. She liked the old man. He reminded her of her uncles back home. They sat in silence, meditating over his words and the slow trickle of water downstream.

“So what’s the old chap’s name?” Mr. Gross asked.

“Arto Sandaldjian.”

“Sandel-john — I feel like I know him already.”

“I wanted to ask, sir — what drew you to this etching? It isn’t as detailed as the others and I still haven’t finalized the prints.”

“It isn’t about the details, my dear. Looks at the man’s face — there is sadness there. You capture his loneliness as he performs and that is worth its weight in gold. You can etch all the scenery you want but none of that will compare to a few strokes of genius. Emotion, my dear. That is when you capture your audience and tell your story. You already do this with your painting — but now I challenge you to do so with your etchings.”

“I’ll do my best, sir”

“Excellent, excellent.”

Mr. Gross leaned back in his seat and lit another cigarette, exhaling plumes of white smoke above their heads. He looked across the desk at the student sitting before him as though he were taking her in for the first time. Menhat sensed him watching her, even though she kept her eyes fixed on the table.

“You know I spent some time in Cairo,” he said, breaking the lingering silence between them.

“Did you, sir?”

“Oh yes — I was a captain in the 9^th Army during the war. Got stationed in Cairo for a few months in 1942 before moving on to Palestine, Syria and Lebanon; mainly painting the war and so on. Heaven knows I’m not a soldier. Then I was brought back again in 1942 from Tehran and spent time with the 8^th Army — terrible business; witnessed the Battle of El-Alamein.”

Menhat remembered reading about the battle and listening to her father and elder cousins discussing it in their salon at home. She remembered the soldiers patrolling the streets as she walked to school. “Did you get a chance to interact with many Egyptians, sir?” she asked.

“Not many, no. But they were strong, able-bodied men from what I could tell. Not too bright but good soldiers when under the right leadership.”

Menhat smiled. Only the English could make insults sound like compliments. , “Hard to believe it’s been 10 years since the war ended.”

“And yet the British Empire is falling to pieces. Look at India or that Nasser chap in Egypt. It’s all well and good for countries to seek independence but where does that leave England? Even Churchill decided to take a bow and resign from office last month. Times really are changing.”

Menhat had never met a teacher quite like Mr. Gross. Professor Coldstream was a commanding figure; brisk, dapper, and always dressed in a suit, tie and waistcoat. Mr. Gross, on the other hand, was quick-witted and surprisingly blunt for an Englishman. There was no subtlety with this man, only charm and a fading sense of nostalgia. She did not know why, but she sensed she was free to speak her mind in front of this man.

“With all due respect, sir — maybe it is time for a change.”

“Ah, so you’re a socialist?”

Menhat sensed a rhetorical question. She smiled and let his words linger in the air, intertwined with the silver wisps of smoke.

“I think you’re a fine artist. And you have a good head on your shoulders. I want you to consider submitting an entry for the Slade Prize in Etching — you’re in your third year, right?”

“Yes, sir. I graduate in a few months, God willing.”

“Then that settles it. You’ll submit an entry. I think your work is as good as any student I’ve seen in their final year. Maybe even better. We’ll have to see, won’t we?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right — that’s settled, then,“ Mr Gross said, rising from his seat. “I think that is enough talk of art and politics for one evening. It was a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Menu-hat.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Gross.”

The Arthur Tattersall House at 115-131 Gower St was a discreet, charming residence across from the Slade School of Fine Arts, and minutes away from Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street. The brick facade glimmered deep red against the nearby lamppost, highlighting twelve large units wedged side-by-side in typical London constriction. Most of the school’s international students called it home.

Menhat’s room was fully equipped with the bare necessities. There was a kitchenette, a bed, telephone, and washbasin with a shower, and a table that doubled as a work station, which she kept beneath the small window overlooking the bustling street. She placed the portfolio on the desk and checked to see if her plants needed watering. They did and she needed the distraction.

Menhat avoided thinking about the meeting with Mr. Gross for as long as she could. She made some dinner — a cucumber salad and a bowl of peas and rice — and spent some time organizing her chest of drawers, making sure each item was folded in perfect squares. She then changed into a stripped nightgown and slipped between the warm sheets in her bed.

Her mind grew restless. She replayed portions of her conversation with Mr. Gross. The man was clearly knowledgable about etchings, the techniques, the history, and even the lore, but there was so much more to him. He was not stiff and self-righteous like many of his colleagues, instead exuding the casual air of a man who bucked traditions and unnecessary decorum.

She had heard about him before, of course. News spread quickly about his appointment as head of the printmaking department at The Slade, and so did the rumours about his life and travels. “Did you know he worked in film?” one student asked. “He did the art for all my favourite books,” said another.

Menhat had never read Wuthering Heights or The Forsythe Saga, or that new one that came out recently that everyone was talking about — Lord of the Flies, or something like that — but she was impressed. And now here he was, encouraging her to submit an entry into the school competition, and at Professor Coldstream’s recommendation, no less!

Before Menhat knew what she was doing, she climbed out of her bed and walked over to the desk. She opened the drawer attached to it and pulled out a folded letter, wrinkled from repeated reads. She sat beside the desk and read her Baba’s words beneath the moonlight:

My dearest Menhat,

I went out into the courtyard for a walk this morning. I took your mother with me, and together we strolled through the garden and had breakfast beneath the veranda. We watched the sun rise and were in awe at its beauty. Even at my age, it never ceases to amaze me — what a miracle it is! I watched it rise and settle on the mango tree, casting a shadow over the exact spot you used to sit and paint every evening after school. It might have been a trick of the light but I could almost see you there at that moment, putting down greens and reds and yellows and violets until the garden came to life on your canvas.

But, of course, you were not there. No, you are off on your own adventure. An artist groomed among masters. A free woman in a man’s world. My daughter raising the family name to new heights. I have no doubt that you will meet every expectation I have placed on you, as unreasonable as they may be, and surpass them with the grace, charm, and resilience that you could only have inherited from your mother.

I know that, by the grace of God, I will see you again in a few months. But I am not ashamed to admit that my heart aches in your absence. I may have seven daughters but each of you represents a portion of my soul. When any of you are away, I am incomplete. But alas, it is the will of God, and who am I to question Him.

I shall rest easy tonight knowing my beautiful Menhat is achieving her dreams and building a life of independence. This country needs strong women like you now more than ever. Things are changing, my dear, and you must rise up to the demands that come with it. Indeed, I know you shall.

Until we meet again,

Mohammad Helmy

Menhat had read the letter more times than she could remember now but it always blanketed her with a sense of calm. It was a reminder of what she had sacrificed, the friends and family she had left behind, and the goals she had set for herself when she got the government scholarship three years ago.

Tired, Menhat retreated to her bed. She slid between the sheets and closed her eyes, welcoming the empty black. Her muscles relaxed and soon she could imagine the garden in Helwan — her favourite place at home. She inhaled deep and got a whiff of the mango tree she loved. The smell soon vanished, replaced by the scent of attar — her Baba’s smell. She pictured him standing there — lean and proud in his suit and tarboosh, a king among men.

He smiled and she faded into the night.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

The Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum was even more grand by night. Built in 1915 using elements of the Art Nouveau style of architecture, the four-story villa, once owned by politician turned art patron Mahmoud Khalil Pasha, was adorned with glass and metalwork fixtures at the entrance, while its eastern side faced the River Nile, glistening beneath the crescent moon. Spotlights and lampposts peppered the garden leading towards the entrance, guiding us towards a state-of-the-art exhibition hall—the largest of its kind at the time in Egypt—where a tribute was being held for my grandmother, Menhat Helmy.

The historic exhibition debuted in December 2005, eighteen months following the pioneering artist’s passing. The retrospective show brought together a career’s worth of artworks ranging from sketches, portraits, and paintings, to sculptures and abstract etchings. It was the first time that the vast majority of Helmy’s oeuvre had ever been on display in a single setting—a career spanning four decades laid bare for all to see. It was an unveiling that helped resurrect the career of an artist who was all but lost to the annals of old exhibition catalogues and cemented her status as a pioneer during the golden age of modern Egyptian art.

Though I was only thirteen years old at the time, I have vivid memories of the opening night. I attended the exhibition along with my mother, Sara—smiling from ear to ear as she took in her mother’s work, seeing some of the pieces for the first time in decades—and my brother, Rami. Many of Helmy’s brothers and sisters who had succeeded her were also in attendance. I recall the ribbon-cutting ceremony with then Minister of Culture Farouk Hosny and the endless sea of faces that filled the exhibition hall shortly thereafter.

My aunt Nihal, who was two years older than my mother, was responsible for the event and its eventual success. She worked with renowned sculptor and curator Ehab El-Laban to bring the retrospective to life, which included the Herculean task of archiving and cataloguing hundreds of artworks. As a successful businesswoman and art lover, she assumed the responsibility of managing the estate, and her first order of business had been the retrospective in tribute to her mother. Sadly, it was also one of the last things my aunt would do for the estate, as she was killed in a tragic car accident in September 2007.

On the 20th anniversary the Menhat Helmy retrospective, my mother and I thought it was time to share some of the footage taken during the opening night of the historic exhibition. We are lucky to still be in possession of this footage, which feels like unearthing a time capsule from a different age.

Now is your chance to wander through the echoes of the past with us.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

It has been more than 21 years since I last saw my grandmother, Menhat Helmy. She departed this world in peaceful sleep on May 10, 2004, marking the end of a groundbreaking life and career spanning countless awards, accolades, and masterpieces that continue to be celebrated to this day.

Egypt’s artists, intellectuals and educators mourned the loss of their remarkable colleague, penning obituaries and essays exalting her talent, grace, and presence. They spoke of the pioneering artist who exuded excellence in her craft and stood out among her contemporaries during a golden age in modern Egyptian art. They celebrated a woman who broke boundaries as a female artist and cemented her legacy as a printmaker and painter on an international stage. They honoured a professor who raised a generation of Egyptian artists to pursue their dreams.

Her family, too, mourned the loss of their loving sister, mother, and grandmother, as the depth of her absence slowly dawned on us. I still remember the 12-year-old me sobbing silently when my aunt first told me that my beloved grandmother had moved beyond the realm of the living—beyond the world I knew, where I could no longer find her or ask her the questions only she could answer.

For most, the memories of their departed relatives blur with the passage of time, reduced to a series of images or anecdotes to be repeated across the generations, until those too come to pass into the annals of history.

This was not the case for my mother and I.

Over the past few years, we ‘ve been blessed with the privilege of managing my grandmother’s remarkable estate, including her entire body of works and an archive of documents, books, photographs and correspondences. I’ve learned more about my grandmother’s and her extraordinary life in the last few years than during her lifetime. It has allowed me to feel closer to her, to understand her work, and to reimagine the world she occupied, to appreciate her in a way I couldn’t have imagined possible during her lifetime.

It is a privilege I cherish, but as my mother and I continue to research her work and amass new knowledge from the archive, we’ve been left with a series of questions without any answers—questions that only Menhat Helmy can answer.

Now, to mark 21 years since Menhat Helmy’s passing, my mother and I wanted to publish some of the questions we wish we could ask my grandmother, if only we just had more time.

Sara:

When you completed your diploma at the Slade School of Fine Arts in 1955, would you have stayed on in London if you had the choice?

Why did you choose to marry later than what was the norm at the time? Was it because you decided to focus on your art?

How were you able to juggle being a prolific artist, a teacher, and a dedicated wife and mother? It seems incredible that you were able to live such different lives without compromising any of those roles.

Why didn’t you continue painting or sketching when you retired from printmaking? Why did you distance yourself from your art entirely? Why didn’t you continue?

The only portraits you ever painted were of models during your time at art school in Egypt and London. Why didn’t you paint the people closest to you? Was it because that style of art didn’t speak to you?

Your artwork was truly incredible. Why did you remain so lowkey? Why did you never write about yourself or go out of your way to promote that incredible work?

Do you feel you received the recognition that you deserved?

How would you feel if you were around to see the work your grandson is doing right now?

Karim:

Did you keep a diary when you were studying in London in the 1950s? If not, why?

Why did you wait until 1966 to host your first solo exhibition? That was 11 years and multiple awards after you returned from London.

Who were the artists that you regularly corresponded with? Whom among them did you consider your friends?

What happened to the abstract painting you did following Gamal Abdel Nasser’s death?

How did you feel about Nasser?

You have no works between 1967-69. Was that because of the Naksa? Or were you focused on something else at the time?

How did you fund your trip to the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s?

Your abstract work in the 1970s was so avant-garde and ahead of its time. Where did you draw your inspiration?

When your lungs no longer allowed you to continue printmaking, why didn’t you return to painting?

If there were key defining moments in your life, what were they?

What have we gotten wrong?

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

The pit is large and intimidating — a circular platform filled with towering cranes and flowing cement. Electrical stations pepper the rocky terrain while makeshift paths carve their way through the landscape. There are people within the pit — hundreds of workers as active as ants building their home. Some drive trucks while others labour in the smouldering heat, hundreds of kilometres away from their families.

This is the building of the Aswan High Dam as artist Menhat Helmy saw it in 1966. For her, the ambitious project was both a monumental achievement and a national sacrifice that came at the expense of Egypt’s poor.

Helmy was not alone in this view. The pioneering printmaker was one of several artists who travelled from Cairo to Aswan to document the building of the dam during the 1960s. Some, including Effat Naghi, Ragheb Ayad, and Tahia Halim, were given government grants to travel to the construction site in the hopes that they would return with favourable interpretations of the precarious project. While some artists did present glorified works that praised the construction, others (such as the aforementioned artists) opted instead to provide critical insight into the geographic and socio-political consequences that arose from the mega-project.

These artists were among the Egyptian intellectuals who rejected the Egyptian government’s thinly-veiled attempt at state propaganda, instead using their talents to challenge the government’s project and document the casualties it engendered. Thanks to these artists and their subtle artworks, we are now able to view the construction of the Aswan High Dam through their critical lenses.

“The Eighth Wonder of the World”

When Napoleon entered Egypt with his occupying French forces in 1798, he observed, “If I were to rule a country like Egypt, not a single drop of water would be allowed to flow into the Mediterranean” (Biswas, 25; Building the World, 612).

Since then, the River Nile has held a mysterious attraction to politicians from across the world, many of whom have attempted to assume control of its flowing waters. This form of hydropolitics — politics based on water resources — is the primary reason why the Aswan High Dam was developed in the 1960s.

When the Free Officers Movement overthrew the Egyptian monarchy in 1952, they became convinced that the Nile’s water had to be stored in Egypt, instead of the proposed Nile Valley Plan which would have stored water in Sudan and Ethiopia, for political control of water supplies. In 1958, the USSR sent support for the High Dam project, including technicians and heavy machinery.

The Aswan High Dam was promoted as the world’s largest embarkment dam, and became a key component of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s tenure as President of Egypt (and later the United Arab Republic with Syria). It was viewed as a symbol of Egyptian independence and industrialization due to its projected benefits, including the ability to generate hydroelectricity, increased water storage for irrigation, and control over Nile waters. As such, the Dam had a profound effect on Egypt’s economy, as well as its culture.

Construction of the mega-project commenced on January 9, 1960, and continued until July 21, 1970. The first dam construction stage was completed in 1964, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev visited Aswan alongside Nasser to witness the ceremony to divert the Nile. It was on this occasion that Khrushchev referred to the Dam as the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World.’

And yet, despite the expected benefits propagated by the Egyptian government, the High Dam came at a hefty expense, including the forced displacement of over 100,000 Nubians residing in Upper Egypt. Many archaeological sites were also submerged by flooding, including the Buhen fort and the Fardus cemetery. There was also little reporting or documentation of the poor working conditions endured by labourers on the project.

It is here that Egypt’s artists played an invaluable role as eyewitnesses, observing the ongoing scene before projecting it back onto their preferred medium.

Countering State Propaganda

The early years of Nasser’s presidency were a time of national pride and hopeful expectations for the future. For the first time in a millennia, Egypt was ruled by Egyptians — an achievement that led many to become staunch Nasserists and near-propagandists for a state they believed to have set them free. This included artists such as Hamed Ewais, a friend of the president who was known as a pillar of revolutionary art in Egypt for works such as Al Zaim w Ta’mim Al Canal (painted in 1957 following the nationalization of the Suez Canal) and Le Gardien De La Vie (painted right after the Arab defeat at the hands of Israel in 1967).

Another example was Abdel Hadi Al Gazzar — once jailed by King Farouk for insulting him in the artwork The Popular Chorus — whose painting, The Charter (1962), depicts a green woman wearing a crown and holding Nasser’s manifesto while workers kneel before her.

When Nasser rose to power in the years following the 1952 coup d’état led by the Free Officers Movement, he was cognizant of the strategic advantages of cultural initiatives such as music, art, and literature, especially as state propaganda aimed at fuelling nationalist fervour and enhancing his populist government. In 1958, he founded the Ministry of Culture and National Guidance, which was responsible for funding and promoting Egyptian culture. Thereafter, the state maintained a guiding hand over Egyptian culture, swaying it towards nationalistic topics for creative expression that would then trickle down to the masses.

An example of the state’s influence in propagating political art came in the 1960s when the Egyptian regime offered government grants for artists and writers to travel to the Aswan High Dam construction site as it progressed. Among those who attended the various trips were Seif Wanly, Hussein Youssef Amin, Saad al-Khadem, Effat Naghi, Rageb Ayad, Tahia Halim, and writers Son’allah Ibrahim, Kamal al-Qilish and Raouf Musa’ad. Others who decided to independently venture to the High Dam included Menhat Helmy and Gazbia Sirry.

While some of these creative talents followed the government’s expectations for the commissioned work and documented the building of the Dam in all its glory, others attempted to maintain their independence and offer critical insight into the negative aspects surrounding the mega-project.

Tahia Halim (1919-2003) focused her efforts on depicting life in Nubia before its villages were drenched by Lake Nasser during the construction process and its inhabitants deported to Kom Ombo and other locations in 1962. Her paintings at the time were dream-like and inlayed with folkloric mysticism, highlighting the sadness at the fate of the beautiful land.. Two such works include In the Old Nubia Town and Boat Trip (1966).

Gazbia Sirry (1925) took a similar approach during her time in Aswan. Instead of documenting the High Dam itself, she took an interest in Nubia and took to painting colourful houses and life within the villages. A notable example is her Portrait of a Nubian Family (1962), now part of the Barjeel Art Foundation collection in Sharjah, UAE. The painting features a Nubian mother with four children, all of whom are wearing blank expressions on their faces, as though they had already accepted their inevitable fate.

Avant-garde artist Effat Naghi (1905–94) focused on the High Dam construction to produce paintings that did not even feature human subjects. Instead, the High Dam was the central figure — a precarious creation highlighted by sharp black lines representing the scaffolding and steel beams used to erect the monstrous and haphazard structure. There is little to inspire viewers within the piece, instead raising questions about whether Naghi intended to praise the Dam construction or criticize its unnatural aims. The work, entitled ‘The High Dam,’ was completed in 1966.

Interestingly, some of the artists who were not commissioned to document the High Dam construction were among those who produced some of the most detailed depictions. Menhat Helmy (1925-2004) ventured to Aswan at her own expense to witness the construction process, and produced four black-and-white etchings and a painting that encapsulate the historic moment in brutal honesty. Two of those works — The Deal & The High Dam — were created in 1964, while the latter pair — Workers at the High Dam & Electrical Station — were completed in 1966.

Not only are Helmy’s artworks depicting the High Dam among the finest of her etchings, they are permanent reminders of the sacrifices Egyptians made in the pursuit of national prosperity. Her art is filled with toiling workers — clogs in a well-oiled machine — who few remember in hindsight. And yet, Egypt’s unseen majority continues to live on in her work.

Egyptian novelist and short story writer Son’allah Ibrahim took a different path through his writing, one that led to two dichotomous books. The first was a book of state propaganda reportage done with his colleagues Kamal al-Qilish and Raouf Musa’ad titled The Man of the High Dam (1967), while his second book on the construction, titled August Star (1973), was chronicled his trip to the High Dam site in 1966. The second book, written while Ibrahim was studying in Moscow, is far more critical of the regime and the construction process.

These two books offer us insight into the self-censorship that impeded creative works due to the politicized nature of the topics, mainly the propaganda apparatuses that thrived at the time. Years later, Ibrahim commented on this aspect of his books:

“My friends and I wrote a travel book in haste about our experience…from the title of the book alone it is clear that neither in its language nor in its construction does it differ from the exalted propaganda of the time…I was simply doing what I considered to be my duty, telling myself that later I would…find an opportunity to express myself more freely.”

While it is true that plenty of artists found ways to be implicitly critical about the Aswan High Dam and stood up to Egypt’s thinly-veiled attempt at state propaganda, it should also be noted that none of these aforementioned works (apart from August Star, which was banned in Egypt) had any significant political impact. In truth, Egyptian art had limited scope at the time and was viewed as an elitist or intellectual platform rather than an outlet for the masses. As such, the critical works had little effect on the nationalist fervor that emerged during the construction process.

Although the artists were unable to reach a wider audience with their message, their works continue to live on to this day as analytical and historical documentation that allows us to reevaluate the societal and cultural context surrounding the High Dam.

Without these artistic depictions and writings, our understanding of the High Dam would be limited to propaganda and censored drivel instead of an honest, self-reflective evaluation of our historical wrongdoings.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a media platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

Against a backdrop of dilapidated, misshaped buildings lies a series of wooden houseboats moored along the shores of the Nile River. The two-story structures steady themselves with tranquil buoyancy, untroubled by the rippling river, while their occupants drift through open terraces overlooking the green banks, relishing simple joys uncommon in a city as chaotic as Cairo.

There is an outdated grace to these floating homes — an unlikely paradise besieged by a sprawling mass of concrete. They adorn the local landscape, hearkening back to a time before the dull-gray skyscrapers that flank the Nile’s western bank; a time when homes such as these were at the heart of a thriving Cairene culture, hosting late-night salons, intellectual debates and a refuge for society’s elite looking to escape the conservative capital.

This is the scene depicted in Menhat Helmy’s “The Houseboats” (1960), a charming black-and-white etching (a printmaking process that involves making art on metal plates using corrosive acid to cut into the surface) that offers a rare glimpse into life along the Nile more than six decades ago

Helmy, who passed away in 2004 at age 78, was a pioneering printmaker and painter, and among the first Egyptian artists to create elaborate etchings that captured the intricacies and minutiae of life in Cairo during the unprecedented socioeconomic changes that transformed the country under former President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

She is also my grandmother, and I’ve only recently come to realize how significant her etchings are in a rapidly-changing Egypt.

In late June 2022, the Egyptian authorities began to forcibly evict residents and owners of the 32 houseboats docked along the Kit Kat area of Giza. The evictions followed a sudden decree from the Irrigation Ministry earlier that month, as part of a plan to develop the Nile Corniche and create a pathway for commercial projects along the river. By July 3, the entire Nile community had been evicted, leaving dozens of occupants — ranging from war veterans to writers to elderly women — stranded in the process.

The tragic incident marked the latest stage in the Egyptian government’s aggressive and expansive urban development drive — an unprecedented project that has resulted in the demolition of many of Egypt’s historic landmarks, green spaces and neighborhoods in its quest to become the new Dubai.

In consequence, my grandmother’s extensive oeuvre of etchings and paintings — scenes of lupin sellers, ancient mosques, popular theaters, agricultural fields and women at work in various settings — have transformed into a wealth of historical documents that capture the very essence of a bygone Cairo and its threatened identity.

At the close of his eighth year in power, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi continues to shape Egypt in his own image.

The military commander-turned-politician has overseen an endless stream of economic projects that prioritize profit at the expense of public interest, resulting in hundreds of thousands of Egyptians being forcibly evicted and displaced.

This was the case in the Maspero Triangle, a low-income neighborhood in the heart of Cairo that spent decades staving off the Egyptian government’s attempts to demolish and gentrify the Nile-adjacent area. After years of fighting and negotiating with various Egyptian administrations, more than 4,500 households were forcibly evicted in 2018 to make room for new developments.

Most residents of the working-class area were promised minuscule housing allowances from the government to offset a three-year redevelopment period, while the rest were offered alternative housing elsewhere in the city. Those who rented in these neighborhoods and had often inherited an extremely low rental rate from their parents or grandparents were given temporary housing or forced to immediately find new homes in a housing market they were largely priced out of. The new homes that have since replaced the shabby low-rise buildings are among the most valuable in central Cairo.

This unabashed gentrification agenda was used as a blueprint for several other informal neighborhoods demolished under the pretext of development. In January 2022, the authorities evacuated residents from the working-class al-Jayara, Hosh al-Ghajar, al-Sukar and al-Lemon neighborhoods in Old Cairo in order to develop new tourism and entertainment projects spanning 12.5 acres. Later that month, hundreds of thousands of residents of the 6th and 7th districts of the Nasr City neighborhood, a planned district in eastern Cairo built in the 1960s, were forcibly evicted to make way for luxury housing developments.

In August this year, protests erupted on Warraq Island, an islet in the Giza Governorate, over government plans to forcibly evict its approximately 100,000 residents to make room for a luxury district dubbed Horus City.

“These pictures are not of Manhattan, USA! Can you believe they are actually the designs for Egypt’s Horus City, previously Warraq?” asked Egypt’s State Information Service on Facebook, alongside pictures of the futuristic digital models proposed for the city, which the government noted will include “seven-star hotels.”

While the Egyptian government defended its actions by labeling the targeted neighborhoods as “slums” and deeming the buildings unsafe or unsuitable for living in, critics have accused the authorities of monetizing the land by selling it to wealthy investors looking to create commercial ventures.

Other detractors raised concerns about the replacement housing projects that have been erected to house residents from Cairo’s demolished settlements. Among these is the Asmarat housing project in Cairo’s hilly suburb of Mokattam, which houses more than 10,000 relocated families, including many from the Maspero Triangle. These areas are somewhat isolated, meaning there are limited services and resources such as schools, hospitals, markets and public transportation available to residents. In one research paper, an Asmarat resident likened the experience of living there to being in an “open-air prison.”

The crown jewel of el-Sisi’s mega-urbanization drive is the New Administrative Capital, a city with an estimated budget of $58 billion that is the most expensive project undertaken by the current regime. Located approximately 30 miles east of Cairo, construction began in 2015 and is expected to conclude in the coming years. Government departments and civil servants will be obliged to permanently relocate from Cairo to the new city upon its completion. The New Administrative Capital will span over 270 square miles — roughly the size of the Kingdom of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf.

Planning for the New Administrative Capital included investment in transportation infrastructure such as bridges and expressways, which have contributed to the destruction of some of Cairo’s green spaces and heritage sites.

In 2020, the authorities demolished rows of graves and mausoleums in Cairo’s historic City of the Dead to carve out space for a new multilane highway. The demolition sent shockwaves throughout the country, as the series of ancient cemeteries housed many of the country’s famous rulers and intellectuals, as well as ordinary citizens. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979.

Among the more recent tombs to face demolition was the resting place of Egypt’s literary giant Taha Hussein, which was reportedly earmarked for removal to make way for an overpass and corridor connecting a web of new bridges. Following scathing criticism from some of the country’s most notable cultural figures, the authorities denied having plans to demolish the tomb.

Egypt’s green spaces have also suffered the wrath of Cairo’s unsettling transformation. Heliopolis, an affluent district that once housed the residence of former President Hosni Mubarak, lost more than 100 acres of green space (roughly the size of 70 soccer pitches) since 2019 to make way for new streets, overpasses and state-owned gas stations. Several other locations, including Ahmed Fakhry Street in Nasr City and 17th Street in Mokattam have also seen their green lungs razed, leaving behind yet another irreversible tear in Cairo’s urban fabric.

During my most recent trip to Cairo in the summer of 2022, I was distraught over the unabashed destruction and reconstruction of this ancient city and its cultural hearts. I turned to my grandmother’s work to revisit her Cairo, unmarred by such unchecked development.

Yet in reviewing her works, I realized my Cairo was not so different from hers.

Born in 1925 and raised in Helwan, a once-peaceful suburb on the Nile bank that stands opposite the ruins of Memphis, my grandmother grew up in a neighborhood filled with lush gardens, wide streets and estates that housed large families with many children. She herself was the middle child among seven sisters and two brothers, which may explain why she was driven to distinguish herself through artistic expression. Encouraged to pursue art by her supportive parents, Helmy dedicated herself to her craft and graduated with distinction from Cairo’s High Institute of Pedagogic Studies for Art in 1948, before receiving a teacher’s diploma the following year.

Helmy’s noticeable talent earned her a government scholarship in 1952 — just months after the July military coup that overthrew Egypt’s monarchy — to continue her education in London, England, at the prestigious Slade School of Fine Art. It was there that she discovered printmaking and began to experiment with different plates and techniques. Eventually, she settled on etchings as her preferred medium.

Helmy traveled across England during her three years at Slade, exploring parks, churches and rivers and carrying a small sketchbook that she used to lay the foundations for future prints. She captured the country’s diverse landscapes and immersive gardens, occasionally portraying figures reading newspapers or going about their day. Her work did not go unnoticed: She was awarded a prestigious etching prize in her final year at the university.

Returning to Egypt in 1955, Helmy found her country consumed by socioeconomic upheaval and nationalistic fervor. Under Nasser’s rule, Egypt introduced far-reaching land reforms, as well as a series of socialist measures aimed at modernizing Egypt. Thrust into a rapidly-changing Cairo, Helmy began to feverishly document the societal changes taking place around her, capturing historic events such as the Suez Canal crisis, the construction of the Aswan High Dam and the 1957 parliamentary elections, which marked the first election in which women had the right to vote or stand for election in Egypt.

It was during my grandmother’s resettlement in Cairo that Nasser announced plans to turn her native Helwan into a major industrial city. Throughout the late 1950s, Helmy witnessed her quaint neighborhood first transform into automobile factories and a massive steelworks zone and then develop into a run-down suburb, unrecognizable to its residents. Her parents and unmarried siblings relocated to the affluent suburb of Maadi in 1961. The sudden erasure of Helwan’s cultural heritage and historic neighborhood left a profound impression on the young artist.

Helmy had a flair for capturing Cairo’s fleeting grace, from its once-proud agricultural fields and its shimmering Nile shore to its popular theaters, marketplaces and water-docked casinos. Each etching bore her trademark eye for precision and her sensitive nature, inviting viewers to bear witness to the lives of regular Egyptians.

In “Lupin Seller” (1956), Helmy re-created a scene typical of any of old Cairo’s many informal neighborhoods. There is a man selling pickled lupin beans, a snack popular in Egypt and other Mediterranean countries; women balancing jugs on their heads waiting to fill them from state-established water fountains; children playing in a nearby school or helping their fathers sell goods across the street; and donkeys carting bread and other goods to a nearby destination. Helmy assumes a bird’s-eye perspective in her etching, allowing us to watch over the various figures as they go about their day with grace and dignity, seemingly unperturbed by the changes taking place around them. While the work is set in central Cairo, it is very likely that Helmy grew up surrounded by similar scenes in Helwan.

Helmy would maintain this panoramic perspective in many of her etchings in the 1950s and 1960s, including “Outpatient Clinic” (1958), which portrays rows of women breastfeeding their children in an enclosed, outdoor space in old Cairo. The etching, which was later rendered as a painting that is now part of the Barjeel Art Foundation collection in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, was one of the earliest examples of an Egyptian artist depicting breastfeeding in conservative Egypt.

Another etching from the same year — “In the Village” — takes viewers onto a multistory rooftop in old Cairo, where women take part in activities such as kneading dough, washing clothes, raising chickens and chatting with their neighbors while dangling their legs off the edge of the roof. It is a realistic depiction of life in one of Cairo’s informal neighborhoods, many of which have now been eliminated.

While Helmy depicted many spaces within the city, one neighborhood in particular would steal her heart and go on to become an important part of her storied legacy.

In 1965, an Egyptian women’s magazine published an article about Helmy titled “Bulaq wins an Honorary Prize in Yugoslavia,” celebrating the artist’s repeated successes and prize-winning participation at the Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts.

Helmy had won consecutive honors at the prestigious biannual exhibition in 1961 and 1963 for her etchings documenting life in Bulaq, a Nile-front district in the northwest of Cairo and the surrounding area. Bulaq was among Cairo’s oldest quarters, filled with run-down buildings, energetic markets and a predominantly working-class population.

The magazine article featured several of Helmy’s works, including a small reproduction of an etching from 1957 titled “Ezbet el-Ward,” an informal neighborhood that was demolished as part of Nasser’s attempt to modernize Cairo. It is a tightly-constructed composition showing a dense mass of busy streets and crumbling buildings filled with laborers dressed in galabiyas (traditional robes), children playing soccer and donkeys pulling carts filled with fruits and vegetables. The figures are small yet full of life, as though waiting for viewers to turn their heads away so they can continue about their day.

In the caption, the magazine referred to the etching as an “old picture from a bygone era,” as it portrayed the section of the neighborhood that would later be torn down for redevelopment. This marked the earliest example of Helmy’s work being recognized for its historical value.

Bulaq continued to undergo a significant transformation throughout the 1950s and 1960s, as newly erected buildings and factories eclipsed life in the beloved district — life that was captured in Helmy’s award-winning “Bulaq in the Morning” (1957). The etching portrays a single, densely-packed row of apartment buildings bursting with life and old-world delight. Figures spill out of every window, staring back at the viewer. Neighbors chat across balconies while hanging clothes and launching rope baskets down to the street below. Children play in the alley while young mothers watch over them from the sidewalk. Street vendors sell sweets and bread. Every figure is endowed with a sense of self and identity.

“Helmy fills the black and white print with textures, rich patterns, and strong graphic details,” wrote the art historian Bojana Videkanic in his book “Nonaligned Modernism: Socialist Postcolonial Aesthetics in Yugoslavia, 1945–1985,” which featured several of Helmy’s works, including “Bulaq in the Morning.” “The work is bursting with energy, offering an almost documentary-style slice of life.”

Helmy went on to create more than a dozen etchings focused on life in Bulaq and its environs. Some were dedicated to specific traditional celebrations typical in informal neighborhoods such as the Mawlid (commemoration of the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday), including the once-popular sugar dolls given to children on that occasion. While the prophet’s birthday continues to be celebrated throughout Egypt, the traditional festivals and sweets that once marked the happy occasion are distant memories.

When asked in a 1966 interview about her decision to feature Bulaq so heavily in her work, Helmy revealed that, despite being among the few privileged artists who traveled and studied abroad, Bulaq was the area that most resonated with her.

“Nothing has as much of an effect on me like working-class neighborhoods do,” Helmy said at the time.

While Helmy would ultimately pivot to abstraction in the 1970s, the artist’s chronicling of Bulaq and other informal neighborhoods in central Cairo throughout the 1950s and 1960s remains remarkably relevant all these decades later. 

In Helmy’s time, the neighborhoods of Bulaq and Helwan were particularly targeted in the race toward modernity, leading to the slow decay of Cairo’s old districts and the wealth of culture and traditions within them. The current regime has followed Nasser’s path, forcibly evicting working-class residents, razing their homes and neighborhoods and replacing them with infrastructure and services aimed at a wealthier clientele. El-Sisi’s mega-urbanization projects have effectively erased Cairo’s remaining charm and character, all in the name of characterless vanity projects such as the New Administrative Capital, aimed to define his tenure in office and establish a legacy that will live beyond his own mortality. 

By documenting Cairo’s unseen majority and representing everyday life in elaborate etchings, Helmy was able to preserve a portion of the city’s urban fabric prior to its imminent destruction. While my grandmother could not have known just how much her beloved city would suffer at the hands of its ambitious leaders or how similar our plights would be despite the generational gaps, her work serves as a snapshot of better times — a bygone age when Egypt’s sprawling capital was defined by its people, not its monuments. 

This article was first published in NewLines Magazine in November 2022.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a media platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

In 1958—three years after concluding her studies at the Slade School for Fine Arts in London—Menhat Helmy became pregnant with her first child—a daughter she would name Nihal.

With feelings of motherhood kindling within her, the artist used the figurative style that characterized her paintings at the time to create a fully realized playground with 15 children populating the canvas. Some played on swings while others busied themselves with games and other activities.

There is a sense of pure joy emanating from the painting—an innocence that could only be embodied by children.

The painting, titled “The Playground (1959),” continues to occupy a prominent place in the living room of our family home, a reminder of my grandmother’s breathtaking work and the role that motherhood played in her life and legacy.

In contrast to several of her peers such as Gazbia Sirry, Tahia Halim, and Inji Efflatoun, Helmy stood out as a female artist who successfully managed the balancing act of being both a trailblazing artist and printmaker, while also fulfilling her role as a mother to two daughters.

Unlike her sister and fellow artist Re’aya Helmy, who gave up her career to raise her children, Helmy continued to create new works and present at exhibitions and international printmaking biennales throughout the 1960s and 70s. She held her first solo exhibition in 1966, when her youngest daughter Sara was five years old. An etching of The Playground was among the 55 works exhibited at the time.

In 1972, Helmy relocated back to London after her husband, Abdelghaffar Khallaf, became the medical attaché for the Egyptian embassy in the United Kingdom. The couple travelled with their two daughters and settled in Richmond. Helmy enrolled part-time at Morley College, an adult education college where she continued to study printmaking, mainly intaglio.

Helmy and her family remained in London until 1979, during which time the artist gradually merged her newfound affection for abstraction with her love of printmaking — a combination that cemented Helmy’s place as an Egyptian pioneer.

As I underwent the process of digitizing my grandmother’s archive a few years ago, I uncovered a treasure trove of letters and cards that detailed the correspondences between my grandmother and her two daughters, Nihal, as well as my mother Sara. The letters, which were mainly exchanged in the late 70s when her children had graduated from school and were studying abroad, seemed to burst with love and affection—a testament to their extraordinary bond.

There were also birthday cards and Mothers Day cards buried within my grandmother’s archive.

When Menhat Helmy returned to Egypt in 1979, she purchased a printmaking press and a studio space that she planned to use for years to come. Then, her career came to an unexpected end. Helmy’s lungs began to suffer after years of inhaling fumes from the printmaking process. Then, in 1988, her husband of more than thirty years passed away.

Torn from the partner she cherished and deprived of the art that brought her the most joy, Helmy decided to retire. Her final print is dated 1984.

By the time I was born in 1991, Helmy, deprived of her creative outlet, absorbed herself in the role of grandmother. I remember her helping me build Lego sets, finish jigsaw puzzles, and answering my endless questions as we watched TV.

Every now and then, I would ask her questions about her work: Why are those people naked? Why do those people not have faces? Why did you make this in black-and-white? Despite my never-ending childish curiosity, my grandmother never lost her patience, carefully explaining herself in the calm, soothing voice I can still recall.

Share The Art of Menhat Helmy

Though Helmy’s career was cut short by illness, she continued to live her life by the same principles that characterized her geometric works—a penchant for precision, a deep sense of curiosity, and a self-sufficiency that remained steadfast until she departed from our world. I will remember her not just as my grandmother and a role model for my life, but also as a pioneering Egyptian artist who distinguished herself during an extraordinary era in our country’s history.

Happy Mothers Day.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a media platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

The period between 1967 and 1973 brought the winds of change to an Egypt at the height of pan-Arabism.

The 1967 Arab-Israeli war – commonly referred to as Al-Naksah (The Setback) by Egyptians – was a humiliating defeat for Egypt, Syria and Jordan and highlighted the Arab states’ poor leadership and military strategies. Israel crippled its opposition with a well-enacted strategy, allowing them to seize the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula including the West Bank, East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Nasser subsequently resigned in shame but was reinstated after nationwide protests against his resignation. Nasser remained in power until his sudden death on 28 September 1970.

As with many artists and intellectuals in the region at the time, my grandmother, Mehat Helmy, was profoundly impacted by the events that unfolded between 1967 and 1970.

Throughout the course of a career that spun nearly four decades, the aforementioned three-year period was the only time that Helmy did not produce any new artistic works.

This would change in 1971.

Inspired by the tumultuous events of the previous years, Helmy turned to abstraction for the first time and painted a piece depicting the War of Attrition, which lasted from 1967 until 1970.

Titled Exchange of Fire—or تراشق النيران in Arabic—the painting shows the military strikes taking place between Egypt, depicted in brown, and Israel, depicted in green, with the Red Sea as their separation, in blue. There are red lines streaked across the painting, fired from all sides like cannons at war.

Though they may appear random, there is a remarkable spatial synergy present in the piece – a distinctive characteristic that came to define Helmy’s work. Even her pivot to abstraction was geometric in nature, rooted in deep spirituality and inspired by Islamic art.

Helmy went on to create a second version of this piece in the form of an etching, which offers a different perspective on the work while staying true to her love of printmaking.

Fueled by the turbulent political climate and further drawn to her brush and canvas, Helmy painted a second piece in 1971 titled The Children of Bahr Al Baqar, which portrayed the primary school bombing that took place in the Egyptian village of Bahr El-Baqar (south of Port Said, in the eastern Sharqia governate) on April 8, 1970.

The school was bombed by the Israeli Air Force, killing 46 children and injuring dozens more. The entire school population at the time was 130 students split between three classrooms. Israel later claimed that they thought that the school was an Egyptian military base.

As Israel continues its onslaught and destruction of Gaza's southernmost town of Rafah, where more than half the enclave's population of 2.3 million Palestinians has sought refuge, I can’t help but think of my grandmother and how she would feel as she witnessed the ethnic cleansing of an entire people.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a newsletter and platform supported by its readers and managed solely by the artist's family. Our goal is to persist in showcasing Helmy's groundbreaking artwork and to inspire emerging Arab artists.

If you haven't already, we encourage you to consider becoming a paid subscriber.

It was 9:20am on a Wednesday morning in April 1970 when the Israeli Air Force bombed a primary school in the Egyptian village of Bahr al-Baqar, killing 46 children and injuring dozens more.

The entire school population at the time was 130 students split between three classrooms. The massacre wiped out approximately one third of those students.

The catastrophe was of an unprecedented scale for the inhabitants of the quaint village located to the south of Port Said. With the passage of time, it would gain a somber notoriety, forever etched in their memory as "Al Yom Al Eswed" or "The Black Day."

Subscribe now

The incident occurred during the War of Attrition, which involved fighting between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and their allies from 1967 to 1970.

After news reports exposed the massacre, Israel asserted that the school was situated within an Egyptian military base. Moshe Dayan, who held the position of Defense Minister of Israel at the time, contended that the school had served as a facade for military training and weapon storage.

However, no evidence was ever presented to support this claim and Israel never apologized for the attack.

“Israel said the school trained soldiers, but no, there were no soldiers. We were a school and there were no soldiers near [the village],” Hussein Farrag, a survivor of the bombings, refutes in an interview.

Egypt’s United Nations (UN) ambassador Mohamed El-Zayyat condemned the attacks in a letter addressed to the Secretary-General, stating that “these children were cold-bloodedly murdered by Israelis, flying United States-supplied Phantom jet planes based and operating from a part of Egypt, which is occupied, in defiance of the Charter of the United Nations and its resolutions.”

Over the next few years, the tragedy would be depicted in various media, including a song by the legendary diva Shadia called “The Class is Over”. However, among the first artists to encapsulate the tragedy was my grandmother, Menhat Helmy.

Fuelled by the turbulent political climate and further drawn to her brush and canvas, Helmy painted a piece in 1971 titled The Children of Bahr Al Baqar, which portrayed the 46 children killed in the primary school bombing.

The painting is a classic Menhat Helmy composition: a sea of faceless people, their bodies formed out of rectangles, their heads out of circles, conjoined together in perfect symmetry like an intricate puzzle.

There are exactly 46 bodies, one for every child that died that day, strewn across the canvas. It is grim, powerful, and steeped in emotion. You can almost feel Helmy’s pain resonate through the paint, as she tried to make sense of the senseless violence and the bombing of her homeland.

In 1972, Helmy relocated back to London after her husband, Abdelghaffar Khallaf, became the medical attaché for the Egyptian embassy in the United Kingdom. The couple travelled with their two daughters, Nihal and Sara, and settled in Richmond. Helmy enrolled part-time at Morley College, an adult education college where she continued to study printmaking, mainly intaglio.

Helmy and her family remained in London until 1978, the same year that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the Camp David Accords leaving to an eventual peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

Nevertheless, my grandmother’s Bahr al-Baqar painting—a rare work in her oeuvre depicting warfare—remains relevant more than 50 years later.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a subscriber-supported newsletter. Paid subscriptions will help our family continue to sustain Menhat Helmy’s legacy. If you can afford it, please consider subscribing here.

In 1972, two years following the death of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Arab Socialist Union Central Committee hosted a unique exhibition dedicated to the late president, his ideas, and the significant social and political changes that took place during his historic tenure. Titled “Gamal Abdel Nasser – Exposition¹,” the exhibition brought together dozens of Egypt’s finest artists from various disciplines and invited them to produce works that demonstrated Nasser’s revolutionary thoughts and influence, including Hamed Nada, Gazbia Sirry, Zeinab and Gamal El Segini, Seif Wanli, Effat Nagi, Mostafa El Razzaz and Omar El Nagdi.

Nestled amongst these renowned artists and their impressive works is a striking painting titled Farewell (fig. 1) – a somber oil on canvas work depicting endless rows of faceless people bidding farewell to a bygone age. It is a subtle piece painted by an artist who spent the vast majority of her career capturing the essence of life in Egypt, an artist who rose to prominence as a pioneer in the world of Arab graphics, an artist who would soon be lost to history and to the annals of old catalogues and out-of-print books.

Menhat Helmy produced her art at a pivotal point in Egyptian history. She emerged during a golden age for modern Egyptian artists and cemented herself as a female pioneer in the fertile world of graphics. Her etchings, paintings, and woodcuts are characterized by their geometric harmony, uncompromising precision, and their ability to call forth the collective memory of Egyptian society during the 1950s–1960s. Every work is an extension of the artist’s sensitive nature and her undying pledge to use her talent to provide a voice to Egypt’s unseen majority. Understanding Menhat Helmy’s work begins by understanding both the thematic importance and historical significance of her art.

Subscribe now

England to Egypt in Etchings

Born in 1925 in Helwan, Egypt as a middle child in a family of seven sisters and two brothers, Menhat Allah Helmy stood out amongst her siblings through her artistic talent. Despite being the daughter of a legal consultant in the Ministry of Education, which offered limited exposure to visual arts at a young age, Helmy’s father encouraged her to explore her talent and pursue higher education in fine arts. At the time, state education was the primary avenue for aspiring artists to become exposed to visual arts in Egyptian society². Helmy attended Cairo’s High Institute of Pedagogic Studies for Art alongside her sister Raaya Helmy and fellow Egyptian artist and longtime friend Gazbia Sirry. Some of her teachers during that time include Marguerite Nakhla, one of the finest Egyptian painters of the 20^th century, and Kawkab Saad. Helmy graduated in 1948 but opted to stay on for another year to receive her teaching diploma. 

In 1953 – approximately one year following the July 1952 military coup led by Mohammed Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser that overthrew King Farouk and Egypt’s monarchy – Helmy was awarded a government scholarship and traveled to London to continue her education at the Slade School of Fine Arts. She was joined by Sirry the following year, making them the only two Egyptian women studying at the prestigious school at the time.

Slade proved to be a pivotal time in Helmy’s development as an artist. Not only was it her initial exposure to the world of printmaking, it was also where she learned life drawing and classical painting in the form of portraits and nude figures. Life drawing was the most important component of the Slade curriculum – students began by drawing from the Antique in the cast room until judged by their professor as competent enough to progress to the life room. There, students spent the majority of their time training in objective observation from life and draped models, progressing to painting only when their professor deemed them competent. There were lectures on anatomy and perspective, all of which influenced Helmy’s approach to painting and drawing in the 1950s. Her nude paintings in particular demonstrated the skills she acquired to render subtle shifts in skin tone, juxtapose her model with the domestic drapery and furniture surrounding them, and the way light interacts with the model. Several of these works – small-scale nudes and half-length portraits steeped in Slade’s characteristic emphasis on isolation – were displayed at the Menhat Helmy retrospective show at Gallery OFOQ, Cairo in 2005, less than a year following the artist’s death.

During her three years at Slade, Helmy studied painting and design before settling on etchings as her preferred medium. She began to experiment with different plates, using copper, zinc and wood to produce black-and-white prints that distinguished her work at a young age. Inspired by her new medium of choice, Helmy journeyed across England during her three years at Slade, exploring London’s parks, churches, and rivers, and travelling to places like the Isle of Wight and to small towns along the countryside. She carried a small sketchbook, which she used to lay the foundations for her later prints. Influenced by European masters such as Francisco de Goya and Albrecht Dürer, Helmy used aquatint to produce areas of tonal variation in her etchings, which allowed her to create detailed depictions of the world around her. Her dedication to the craft of printmaking did not go unnoticed, as the Egyptian artist went on to win the Slade Prize for Etching in her final year at the school.

Helmy graduated from Slade in 1955 and returned to her homeland at a time marked by social upheaval, geo-political tension and the rise of Arab nationalism. She decided to use her newfound medium to document the historic changes taking place around her. Among these works is a black-and-white etching on zinc depicting a village neighbourhood preparing for the 1957 parliamentary elections (fig. 2). There are misshapen and dilapidated buildings, pigeons and other fowl nesting on the roof, and signs spelling out the words “Free Elections” and “Vote for the National Assembly.” There are also women leading the process, hanging up signs and rallying support – a feminist aspect that became a common theme in her work. One gets the sense that change is in the air – a sense of hope that trickled down to the masses who believed in their country’s future. Helmy manages to capture the joy of the occasion through the eye of Egypt’s poor, the same segment of Egyptian society that were never given a say in their country’s governing.

Not only did these historical etchings provide a small window into Egypt’s forgotten past, they also shed light on the country’s downtrodden majority and the districts they resided in. Much as she did during her time in England, Helmy traveled around her native land and recorded everything she saw in her extensive catalogue of etchings. There were agricultural landscapes being worked by peasants, fishermen on the Nile, workers labouring inside brick factories, and alleyways reminiscent of the scenes portrayed in Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s stories. These detailed scenes depicted life in Cairo at the time and reflected the artist’s inherent socialism and her insistence on using art as a platform to empower Egyptians.

Between 1956 and 1966, Helmy produced more than 40 black-and-white etchings depicting life in Egypt, inspired by scenes she witnessed while teaching at the Institute of Fine Arts for Girls in Bulaq, Cairo. Apart from a handful of paintings, this period of Helmy’s career was almost exclusively dedicated to etching realistic scenes. Though graphic art forms such as etchings had been taught in Egypt since 1934, it would take approximately two decades for it to be seen as a legitimate art form³. Along with likes of Abdalla Gohar, Omar El Nagdi, Saad Kamel, Hussein El Gebaly, and Mariam Abdel Aleem, Helmy was recognized as one of the pioneering artists⁴ who dedicated themselves to the practice. Helmy’s black-and-white etchings were critically acclaimed⁵ for their remarkable complexity, as well as for their incredible difficulty in realization. Helmy was one of the first artists to engrave entire scenes into her work, replicating the effects of sketches and elaborate drawings on zinc before transforming them into prints.

Helmy’s pioneering work did not go unnoticed. After participating in most local exhibitions from 1956 onwards, she won the Cairo Production Exhibition Prize in 1957 and the Salon du Caire Prize in 1959 and 1960. She also participated in local exhibitions such as the Exposition de Printemps in 1960-61, where she displayed her work alongside the likes of Abdel Hadi Al Gazzar, Samir Rafi, Ramses Younan, Inji Ifflatoun, and Gazbia Sirry. Helmy was then invited to participate in over a dozen biennales around the world during the 1950s and1960s, including the Venice Biennale in Italy, the Alexandria Biennale for Mediterranean Countries in Egypt, and the International Print Biennale, in Krakow, Poland. However, it was at the Ljubljana Biennale for Graphic Arts in former Yugoslavia where Helmy’s work truly shined.

Helmy won the Ljubljana Honourary Prize in 1961 for her Old Cairo (fig. 3) print, which was displayed at the Ljubljana Biennale for Graphics that same year. The print depicts a narrow alleyway in Cairo’s Bulaq neighborhood packed with a dense row of apartment buildings. It is a work brimming with life. There are locals strewn across the street and hanging out of windows and balconies, street vendors selling fried snacks and children playing — all of which was presented in a detailed and geometrically sound composition. It is also a deeply socialist work embedded with a sensitive understanding of Egypt’s majority that characterize Helmy’s etchings. Bojana Videkanic reiterated this statement in her research⁶ on the Ljubljana Biennale, stating that “her representations of the masses are not there for political nationalistic exaltation; rather, they signal people’s sense of self and identity as collectivity created through everyday social bonds of labor, play, and caring.” (Videkanic 2020)

Helmy would later be made an Honorary Academic at the prestigious Accademia delle Arti del Disegno for her work displayed at the Ljubljana Biennale. This achievement was reported in local newspapers at the time. She would continue to create more elaborate black-and-white etchings until 1966, when she held her first solo exhibition at the Akhenaton Gallery in Cairo. The exhibition featured 55 of her etchings created between 1955 and 1966 — an eleven-year labor of love that encapsulates the length of time it took her to compile an extensive repertoire of works.

After establishing herself as an award-winning and acclaimed etcher both at home and on the international stage by the late 1960s, Helmy decided to pivot away from the black-and-white etchings that characterized her work, instead challenging herself to create powerful political paintings and abstract prints, the latter of which were ahead of their time in the Egyptian art scene.

Abstraction in the Age of Arab Nationalism  

The period between 1967 and 1973 brought the winds of change to an Egypt at the height of pan-Arabism. The 1967 Arab-Israeli war – commonly referred to as Al-Naksah (The Setback) by Egyptians – was a humiliating defeat for Egypt, Syria and Jordan and highlighted the Arab states’ poor leadership and military strategies. Israel crippled its opposition with a well-enacted strategy, allowing them to seize the Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula including the West Bank, East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Nasser subsequently resigned in shame but was reinstated after nationwide protests against his resignation. Nasser remained in power until his sudden death on 28 September 1970.

As with many artists and intellectuals in the region at the time, to suggest that Helmy was profoundly impacted by the events that unfolded between 1967 and 1970 would be a gross understatement. Throughout the course of a career that spun nearly four decades, the aforementioned three-year period was the only time that Helmy did not produce any new artistic works. This would change in 1971. Inspired by the tumultuous events of the previous years, Helmy turned to abstraction for the first time and painted a piece depicting the War of Attrition, which lasted from 1967 until 1970.

Subscribe now

Titled Exchange of Fire the painting shows the military strikes taking place between Egypt, depicted in brown, and Israel, depicted in green, with the Red Sea as their separation, in blue. There are red lines streaked across the painting, fired from all sides like cannons at war. Though they may appear random, there is a remarkable spatial synergy present in the piece – a distinctive characteristic that came to define Helmy’s work. Even her pivot to abstraction was geometric in nature, rooted in deep spirituality and inspired by Islamic art. While she continued to free herself from the continues of figurative work and realistic depictions of her surroundings, she never parted from her love for symmetrical and mathematically-minded art.

Fueled by the turbulent political climate and further drawn to her brush and canvas, Helmy painted a second piece in 1971 titled The Children of Bahr Al Baqar (fig. 4), which portrayed the primary school bombing that took place in the Egyptian village of Bahr El-Baqar (south of Port Said, in the eastern Sharqia governate) on April 8, 1970. The school was bombed by the Israeli Air Force, killing 46 children and injuring dozens more. The entire school population at the time was 130 students split between three classrooms. Israel later claimed that they thought that the school was an Egyptian military base.

The painting is a classic Menhat Helmy composition: a sea of faceless people, their bodies formed out of rectangles, their heads out of circles, conjoined together in perfect symmetry like an intricate puzzle. There are exactly 46 bodies, one for every child that died that day, strewn across the canvas. It is grim, powerful, and steeped in emotion. You can almost feel Helmy’s pain resonate through the paint, as she tried to make sense of the senseless violence and the bombing of her homeland.

In 1972, Helmy relocated back to London after her husband, Abdelghaffar Khallaf, became the medical attaché for the Egyptian embassy in the United Kingdom. The couple travelled with their two daughters, Nihal and Sara, and settled in Richmond. Helmy enrolled part-time at Morley College, an adult education college where she continued to study printmaking, mainly intaglio. Helmy and her family remained in London until 1978, during which time the artist gradually merged her newfound affection for abstraction with her love of printmaking — a combination that cemented Helmy’s place as an Egyptian pioneer.

At first, Helmy continued to create political pieces marking key occasions like the Yom Kippur War in October 1973. Two of her etchings at the time, titled Reconstruction and October Crossing reproduced the moment when the Egyptian army successfully crossed the Suez Canal and advanced into the Sinai Peninsula. While a ceasefire was eventually brokered, Egypt was able to gain a stronghold on the east bank of the Suez Canal and used it to negotiate the return of the occupied territory. This was widely seen in Egypt at the time as a psychological and moral victory that compensated for the humiliating defeat six years earlier. Though Helmy was in London during the time of the war, she commemorated the victory in two separate etchings that captured the extent of her fervent nationalism. These are arguably the most overtly political pieces in Helmy’s entire archive of works, lacking the subtle indicators that were more representative of her work. Thereafter, she sought to rid her work of personified elements and experimented with more elaborate compositions using multiple plates, aquatint and acid to create coloured graphics that brought out only the most essential elements.

Set free from the confines of representational art, Helmy became inspired by the ever-changing world around her. She was fascinated by the exploration of space and technological advancements such as the computer, which were reflected in her paintings and etchings at the time. In 1973, she painted one of her finest works titled Space Exploration (fig. 5), a geometric showpiece that opens a window into the night sky and the universe beyond. She would later design a coloured etching based on the painting, which she then printed in various colours. This masterful painting and subsequent etchings are some of the finest and most important pieces in Helmy’s collection and the perfect encapsulation of the final portion of her artistic career. It has since been acquired by renowned collector Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi of the Barjeel Art Foundation and is currently touring the United States as part of the Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World 1950-1980 exhibition, which began on January 14, 2020, in New York City.

Over the course of the next decade, Helmy continued to purify her art of the residue of visual reality. Influenced by Islamic and Pharaonic art, Helmy used geometric abstraction as an avenue to connect science and art with her inherent spirituality. There is harmony and rhythm to her work – a sense of comfort and tranquility that is the result of endless hours of patience and deliberate printmaking artistry. In many ways, Helmy succeeded in creating a pictorial language with her abstraction, one rooted in simple geometric forms presented in various non-illusionistic compositions. It is elemental, pure, and highly emotive.

Unlike organic abstraction which prioritized loose compositions that emphasized the artist’s expressive brushstrokes and the unpredictable nature of the work-in-process, geometric abstraction – especially the etchings Helmy produced in the twilight of her career – required extensive planning and near-perfect precision in order to create shapes that affect or inspire their audience. It can be minimalistic, architectural, playful, or even mystical. She achieved this without succumbing to the dry nature of geometry, instead creating compositions that took viewers on a journey towards an unknown destination. Her art was non-objective, pushing viewers to look within themselves to find solace.

In 1978 – the final year of Helmy’s second stint in London – she composted a coloured etching titled Red Line (fig. 6), a vivid testament to the spirituality of her geometric abstraction. The work appears simplistic, reminiscent of Kazimir Malevich’s suprematist phase. And yet, it is not so much the shape as the lines running through it in perfect synergy, all navigating towards a fine point at the heart of the piece. It asks you to step inside the work and follow the red line towards the light, which grows brighter the further you go. It is a path to salvation, to redemption, to serendipity.

After hosting a solo show of her abstract coloured graphics at the XVIII Gallery in London in 1978 to much press and acclaim, Helmy returned to her native Cairo, and to a new audience ready to receive her work. In 1979, she held another solo show at the Goethe Centre in Cairo, which was attended by renowned artists, politicians, and collectors. While her work was well received, it was not without its critics. In a handful of anonymous messages left in her visitor’s logbook from the event, Helmy’s work was criticized as “mysterious,” “lacking clarity” and for not being “nationalistic” enough. She was called a “Western imitator,” while another expressed that she did not deserve to be referred to as an artist. To a certain extent, these criticisms reflected the nationalistic fervor surging through Egypt at the time. That year, Egypt and Israel had signed a peace treaty following the controversial 1978 Camp David Accords, a decision that was highly unpopular amongst Arab states. Egypt was suspended from the Arab League between 1979–89, and several Arab leaders severed diplomatic ties to the country This dissolution of Arab nationalism led to a resurgence of Egyptian nationalism, which trickled down to all aspects of society, including the Egyptian art scene.

However, the criticism levied against Helmy also emphasizes how ahead of her time her abstract art truly was. She displayed her creations at a time when artists such as Hamed Nada used their work to articulate dark political themes and social commentary in a raw, almost crude form. While Helmy’s earlier work was representative of this political style, her later abstraction stepped far outside its bounds and into new frontiers that were yet to be extensively explored in Egyptian art. Therefore, those who were looking for political commentary in her abstraction viewed it as “mysterious,” while others saw her etchings as a mere Western imitation. As argued throughout the course of this section, those criticisms could not be further from the truth. While Helmy may have learned the art of printmaking in England, her inspirations were both Islamic and derived from her ancient Egyptian ancestors.

Leave a comment

When Menhat Helmy returned to Egypt in 1979, she purchased a printmaking press and a studio space that she planned to use for years to come. Then, her career came to an unexpected end. Helmy’s lungs began to suffer after years of inhaling fumes from the printmaking process. Then, in 1988, her husband of more than thirty years passed away. Torn from the partner she cherished and deprived of the art that brought her the most joy, Helmy decided to retire. Her final print is dated 1983 – a full 21 years before her own passing away in 2004. We can only wonder what else she could have produced during that two-decade period.

Despite her career being cut short, Helmy left behind an extensive body of work made up of sketches, drawings, portraits, paintings, woodcuts, and various styles of etchings. She also left behind a legacy as a pioneering female artist who bucked against artistic trends and revolted against the customary traditions of figurative painting popular in Egypt at the time in favour of experimenting with new mediums. Her portfolio is a journey into an Egyptian woman’s desire to capture the world around her, and a story about her triumph in the age of political turmoil, man-made miracles, and the male chauvinism that continues to threaten the art world.

First published in Manazir Journal in 2020.

For the first time in 45 years, Menhat Helmy’s work will be exhibited in London, England, as part of renowned auction house Christie’s “Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World” summer showcase.

The loan exhibition, which takes place between July 20-August 23, is one of the most expansive and significant exhibitions of modern Arab art in London to date, and will feature more than 150 works from across the Middle East and North Africa. The works are distinguished through a gender-balanced selection which allows for visitors to appreciate the role that modern women artists played in the flourishing modern art movement in the region.

The exhibition will be divided into two captivating sections, “Kawkaba: Highlights from the Barjeel Art Foundation” and “Emirati Art Reimagined: Hassan Sharif and the Contemporary Voices.” Helmy's work will be featured as part of the former.

Subscribe now

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, the founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation noted in the official press release that the “exhibition is a rare opportunity to view in person a selection of artworks from some of the most prominent artists from West Asia and North Africa that have been collected over 20 years. The vast majority of the artworks in the exhibition have never been seen in the U.K. before. The works include a gender balanced selection which allows for visitors to appreciate the role that modern women artists played in the establishment of a flourishing Modern art movement in the region. Barjeel Art Foundation is especially proud to be collaborating with Christie’s on this unique exhibition from whom many of these works have been collected over the years.”

Among the artworks in the exhibition that have not been displayed in London in the past is Helmy’s “Space Exploration”—a masterpiece of geometric abstraction that is among the most fascinating in her oeuvre.

I had the opportunity to discuss Space Exploration during a visit to New York in 2020, while the work was on tour in the United States as part of the Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s – 1980s. You can watch that video below.

While Space Exploration may not have been featured in the United Kingdom in the past, my grandmother did spend a significant portion of her artistic career in London. She studied at the Slade School of Fine Arts in the 1950s, just the second Egyptian woman to do so at the time. It was there that she developed her fascination for printmaking, a fascination that led to numerous awards, including the Slade Prize for Etching in 1955, and propelled her to become one of the finest printmakers of her generation in the Arab world.

My grandmother later returned to the United Kingdom in the 1970s, this time with her husband, Abdelghaffar, and two daughters, Nihal and Sara. She enrolled in Morley College and continued her studies in printmaking. It was during this period that she produced some of her most notable and avant-garde work: a collection of abstract prints inspired by the race to space, technological advancements, and spirituality.

Give a gift subscription

Helmy began with abstract works that were still based on real-life observations, such as ‘The River Thames’ in London (1974), ‘Tenerife’ (1976) on the Canary Islands, or the Eiffel Tower in Paris (1975). As she grew comfortable with the style, Helmy freed herself of representational art and achieved full abstraction with pieces such as ‘Corridors’ (1976) and ‘To the Point’ (1978) — pieces that bore little attachment to specific real world events or monuments but still maintained remarkable geometric synergy and a colour palette of warm tones that brought about a deep sense of tranquility.

Many of the works that Helmy created during this period remain among the most popular in her oeuvre. A selection of her abstract prints went on display at the Museum im Kulturspeicher Würzburg in Germany as part of the “Konkret Global” exhibition in 2022. Many of the prints were also featured in a “Visions of Abstraction” exhibition at the Library of Alexandria in May 2023.

Not only was Helmy ahead of her time — revolting against the customary traditions of classical paintings in favour of new mediums — she was also a tireless experimenter, searching for new horizons. Her work transcended the boundaries of traditional art and bucked the trends set by fine art schools at the time. Her work was a creative adventure — a journey into one woman’s desire for expressionism in the age of political change, technology and man-made miracles.

Now, an entirely new generation of art lovers will have the opportunity to see one of my grandmother’s most remarkable abstract works in London. If you happen to be in the city, the exhibition opens on 20 July and will run until the end of the day on 23 August. Entry is free.

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a subscriber-supported newsletter. Paid subscriptions will help our family continue to sustain Menhat Helmy’s legacy. If you can afford it, please consider subscribing here.

As a child, I was mesmerized by my grandmother’s art — Nanaa’s art, I used to call it. I was far too young to grasp how privileged I was to grow up immersed in such culture; too young to recognize the unique place my grandmother occupied in modern Egyptian art, or understand the profound impact it would have on me as an adult.

I was just 12 years old when Menhat Helmy passed away in 2004. My aunt, Nihal Khallaf, assumed control of her mother’s work. As a successful businesswoman and art lover, she was ideally suited to look after the collection. Realizing the vast potential this held, my aunt decided to host a retrospective exhibition for Helmy’s work, the first since Helmy retired from her profession in the early 1980s. With the help of curator and sculptor Ehab El Laban, the exhibition debuted on December 19, 2005, at Horizon One gallery in Cairo, and was opened by former Minister of Culture Farouk Hosny. Life was good. 

And yet, all good things must come to an end. 

Subscribe now

My aunt — one of the heirs to the family legacy — was killed in a car accident in September 2007. Her loss was as sudden as it was devastating. She was the heart and soul of our family, and the fabric that kept us together.

My family, comprised of my single mother and younger brother, left Egypt and immigrated to Canada, taking with us only a handful of my grandmother’s works. I entered university and emerged with a degree in political science and economic development. I became a journalist, got married, and cemented myself in the new world. The only true reminder of my previous life was the abstract etchings hanging on the walls of my apartment. And yet, something called me back to Egypt all those years later — a need to understand my grandmother’s work and to uncover the artistic heritage our family left behind in Egypt.

I traveled back to Cairo on three separate occasions during 2019, each time with a different purpose relating to my grandmother’s work. The initial trip was where I began the process of uncovering her work in storage, moving it back into our family home, and archiving as much of the documentation as possible, from letters to old catalogues, press clippings, and photos. Each of the following trips built on the foundation of the initial trip and allowed my mother and I to gather an exceptional amount of information on my grandmother, as well as help me identify and categorize approximately eighty percent of her oeuvre. We even discovered some previously unknown artworks along the way!

Since then, I have written articles recounting my experiences, academic pieces on my grandmother’s artistic endeavors, and established an internet footprint for Menhat Helmy’s work in English in order to ensure she is accessible to as wide an audience as possible. This included creating social media pages that are regularly updated with old photographs and artworks. I have also made myself and my resources available to researchers and scholars interested in learning more about her work.

My grandmother’s work has since been acquired by renowned institutions such as the Barjeel Art Foundation, and was featured at a historic exhibition titled, Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World 1950s-80s, which debuted at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery in January 2020. Other group exhibitions in Cairo, Alexandria, and Germany have since followed.

The process of uncovering, archiving, and managing my grandmother’s estate has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my entire life. Not only did it introduce me to an entirely new world—that of modern Egyptian art and the industry surrounding it—it allowed me to reconnect with my grandmother, who had passed away twenty years prior when I was only twelve years old. It is an experience that few ever get to enjoy, and I consider myself lucky to have had this opportunity.

Subscribe now

Now, on the occasion of my grandmother’s 98th birthday, my mother and I have decided to launch a Substack newsletter where we will continue to document Menhat Helmy’s legacy in an even more intimate setting. We will discuss specific works of art, unveil previously unseen aspects of the artist’s archive, uncover letters and correspondences with other artists and family, and provide unprecedented insight into one of Egypt’s pioneering artists.

I hope you choose to embark on this adventure with us.

-Karim & Sara

The Art of Menhat Helmy is a subscriber-supported newsletter. Paid subscriptions will help our family continue to sustain Menhat Helmy’s legacy. If you can afford it, please consider subscribing here.