Mahmoud Said

Mahmoud Said (1897-1964) was an Alexandrian judge who painted Egypt’s fishermen, dervishes and nudes, and is widely called the father of modern Egyptian art.

Mahmoud Said at a glance

• Born: 8 April 1897, Alexandria, Egypt
• Died: 8 April 1964, Alexandria, Egypt
• Nationality: Egyptian
• Medium: Oil painting
• Style/Movement: Modern Egyptian art, Pioneer generation
• Known for: Les Chadoufs, The Whirling Dervishes, Alexandrian portraits, fishermen and Nile scenes, female nudes
• Education: Studied with Amelia Casonato da Forno and Arturo Zanieri in Alexandria; law degree in Cairo; Académie Julian, Paris
• Career: Lawyer and judge for about thirty years; full-time painter from the late 1940s
• Museum: Mahmoud Said Museum, Gianaclis, Alexandria

Said was born in Alexandria on 8 April 1897 into a wealthy family. His father, Mohamed Said Pasha, served as Egypt’s prime minister from 1910 to 1914. The family villa in Gianaclis is now his museum.

He studied painting with the Italian artists Amelia Casonato da Forno and Arturo Zanieri in Alexandria, then took a law degree in Cairo. Around 1920 he studied drawing at the Académie Julian in Paris, paying his own way.

Said worked as a lawyer and then a judge for about thirty years and painted in the hours that remained. His oils pair European academic training with local subjects, using simplified forms, saturated color and a faintly decorative surface. Les Chadoufs (1934) stacks a veiled woman, two men and a donkey at a well into a pyramid, a Renaissance structure filled with Egyptian labor. He resisted the tidy, rationally ordered scenery that colonial-era audiences prized, preferring a bolder and more personal arrangement of the picture.

His subjects came from the city and countryside around him. Fishermen at Rosetta, farmers drawing water with a shaduf, Sufi dervishes in mid-spin, women in black at the cemetery and formal portraits of the Alexandrian elite all appear. About one in ten of his 400-plus paintings is a female nude, often a darker-skinned woman set against an invented Egyptian landscape, a figure that clashes with his society portraits. He found models through his friend Aristomenis Angelopoulos, a Greek painter in the city.

Said left the bench in the late 1940s to paint full time. A large retrospective followed in Cairo in 1951, and he had shown in New York in 1937 and at the Venice Biennale in 1938 and 1948. AskART reports he was the first artist given Egypt’s State Merit Award for the arts, in 1960. In 2010 Christie’s Dubai sold Les Chadoufs for about $2.4 million and The Whirling Dervishes (1929) for about $2.5 million, a record for an Arab painting at auction at that time.

A quiet, gentle, oppressively timid man.

Queen Farida of Egypt, his niece, describing Mahmoud Said (Sotheby’s London catalogue, 2008)

Did you know? Said died on his 67th birthday, 8 April 1964, at the family home in Gianaclis after an asthma attack. Plaster casts of his face and hands, made by the sculptor Gaber Hegazy, are displayed in the Mahmoud Said Museum.

Mahmoud Said: Questions and Answers

Who was Mahmoud Said?

Mahmoud Said (1897-1964) was an Egyptian painter and judge from Alexandria, widely regarded as a founder of modern Egyptian art. He is not the same person as the Iraqi novelist Mahmoud Saeed.

What is Mahmoud Said known for?

He is known for oil paintings that apply a European academic technique to Egyptian subjects, including Les Chadoufs, The Whirling Dervishes, Alexandrian portraits, fishermen and female nudes.

What style did Mahmoud Said paint in?

He belonged to the Pioneer generation of modern Egyptian art. His style is simplified and slightly decorative, with rich color, and the Egyptian Surrealists included his work in their exhibitions in the late 1930s.

Where did Mahmoud Said study?

He studied painting in Alexandria with Amelia Casonato da Forno and Arturo Zanieri, earned a law degree in Cairo, and studied drawing at the Académie Julian in Paris around 1920.

Where can you see Mahmoud Said’s paintings?

The Mahmoud Said Museum in Alexandria holds a core collection. His work is also in the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art in Cairo, Mathaf in Doha and the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah.

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Artists in this article

• Mahmoud Said, painter and subject of this article
• Amelia Casonato da Forno, Italian painter and his first teacher in Alexandria
• Arturo Zanieri, Italian painter and later teacher
• Aristomenis Angelopoulos, Greek painter and friend

More Egyptian painters on WooArts: Mohamed Elmoslemany and Adel Elliethy. Browse the full Egyptian Artist section.

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