Beauty of Egypt, Tragedy of War Captured in Sony Gallery Exhibitions

JUNE 1, 1998 Opening this academic year at the Adham Center's Sony Gallery for Photography was the show "1952, The Last Protocol: Official Coverage of Egypt's Royal Family at Work and Play" from the collection of Dr. Maged Farag, a renowned scholar of Egyptian history and owner of Max Group, a Cairo printing and publishing house. The photographs, mostly spanning the reigns of King Farouk and King Fouad, were taken by official court photographers. Goura village as it was in its 1948 heyday was the subject of November's exhibition. Greek photographer Dimitri Papadimos, born in Egypt in 1918, captured in these photos the work and vision of his friend, the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy. The opening of the exhibition was accompanied by the screening of the Shadi Abdel Salam film "Al Mumia," or "The Night of Counting the Years," which takes place in Gourna.

Four members of Egypt's Photographic Salon--Raafat Abdallah, Reda El Danaf, Wahid Nour El Din, and Ibrahim El Orabi--collaborated to bring to the Sony Gallery in December the show "Along the Southeast Border." This collection brought to life a rarely seen aspect of Egypt, the distinct way of life of the Bushari and Ababda tribes of the Southeast Desert. Jeanette El Wakeel's "Children of the Balad" also focused on people in their environment, in this case mostly children in the streets, lanes, marketplaces, field and villages in and around Cairo. El Wakeel, a long-time resident of Cairo, hopes that her work will focus attention on the well-being of children.

The lush lands of the Nile Delta and the culture of the fellah living there inspired French photographer Bernard Guillot in the March exhibit "Egypt: A Fertile Land." Guillot sees in the fellah a sense of dignity and freedom, a culture of the soul, and an aesthetic quality in both the people and their landscape that he aimed to capture through these photos.

The final show of the year is the work of acclaimed photographer Robert Capa, often called the greatest war photographer in the world for his powerful and moving coverage of five wars between 1936 and his death in 1954. Capa's work has been said to have repersonalized war, bringing to the public a real image of the terror of war and its impact on the innocent.

Over the summer the gallery presents the work of French photographer Jean Pierre Ribière, who examines daily life in the city of Cairo, with its mixture of old and new, of foreign influence and native heritage. The Sony Gallery will open next year's exhibitions with a second show by Egypt's premier portrait photographer Van Leo, whose work was exhibited in the gallery in December 1996.