Lot 17: * GEORGES HANNA SABBAGH (Egypt, 1877-1951) Seascape

Georges Hanna Sabbagh (Egypt, 1877-1951)
Seascape
oil on canvas, framed
signed and dated "1931"
56 x 120cm (22 1/16 x 47 1/4in).
FOOTNOTES
Georges Hanna Sabbagh was an artist of Lebanese origin born in Alexandria in 1887, he is largely considered one of the most prolific and productive artists in the Arab world.

He studied art in Paris, being the first Egyptian at the Louvre School. He was a pupil of Paul Sérusier, Félix Vallotton and the Symbolist painter Maurice Denis. It can be said that he was attached to the artists of the Paris School - he worked beside Amedeo Modigliani

His family and the region of Brittany (where his children were born) provided him with subjects for many of his paintings, before trips to Egypt led him to rediscover the lights, landscapes and characters of his childhood. He excelled in portraits, nudes and landscapes both in France and in Egypt and was enchanted by the old districts of Cairo.

A painter of talent, Georges Sabbagh forms one of the group of artists who Jean Cassou called "the sacrificed generation" (along with Henri de Waroquier and Jules-Émile Zingg) - absorbing the school of Les Nabis, Fauvism and Cubism at the beginning of the century, but forgotten after the Second World War. Cassou describes him as a "cordial and deeply human painter". He was able to create in the end of his career a new attitude towards realism.