Lot 123: Huda Lutfi (Egyptian, b. 1948)

Huda Lutfi (Egyptian, b. 1948)
Suma Mother of Liberty Series 2
painted collage on paper on canvas
37 3/8 x 48in. (95 x 122 cm)
Executed in 2008

H. Amirsadeghi, S. Mikdadi, N. Shabout (eds.), New Vision: Arab Contemporary Art in the 21st Century, London 2009 (detail illustrated in colour, p. 214).

Huda Lutfi blends icongraphy and content from high Egyptian culture, which can easliy be understood by intellectuals, with images and mottos comprehensible to the layman.
An academic as well as an artist, Lutfi teaches Islamic and Arab cultural history at the American University in Cairo. Her approach to art is closely linked to her studies, taking found objects and images from Pharaonic, Coptic, Arab, cultures and even those farther afield- Mediterranean, Indian and African- and incorporating them into her works. Her installations, sculptures and collages all feature these evocative elements, combined together in ways that are surreal and subversive. With keen sense of the kitsch and the culturally relevant, Lutfi has been called an "urban archeologist". This work, however, is far from shallow. As Richard Woffenden states in a review of her work of 2001 in the Cairo Times,
"In Egypt many contemporary artists shy away from using their country's artistic memory in their work for fear of not being modern enough. Conversely some artists fill their canvases with empty mirrors of the past Standing out from the crowd, Huda Lutfi manages to use the rich annals of history to produce work that is both intelligent, personal and fresh."