Slade Lecture Series 2023: Gazbia Sirry and Egyptian artists in the Nasserite State, 1950s-1960s History of Art: Slade Lecture Series

Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu follows the formal and tonal shifts in Gazbia Sirry’s work as it responded to, and was shaped by Nasser’s and post-revolutionary Egypt’s political fortunes. Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu focuses on the work of Gazbia Sirry (1924-2019), to illustrate how leading modernist artists were, in the wake of the 1952 Free Officers Revolution, swayed by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s charisma, putting their art in the service of his brand of Egyptian nationalism and Pan-Arabist ideology. He considers how Sirry responded to Nasser’s increasingly strongman regime and the devastating outcome of 1967 War? Okeke-Agulu follows the formal and tonal shifts in Sirry’s work as it responded to, and was shaped by Nasser’s and post-revolutionary Egypt’s political fortunes. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/