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Kawkab Youssef
"Bathing Nude II" Watercolor Painting 24" x 17" inch (1959) by Kawkab Youssef

1959

About the Item

"Bathing Nude II" Watercolor Painting 24" x 17" inch (1959) by Kawkab Youssef Signed and dated 1959 A short history of Kawkab Youssef El-Assal: With a steady hand, she inscribes this legend on the top of the first of two foolscap papers that contain, she explains, all that she thinks should be known of her life since she does not want to spend too much time talking about herself. She was born in Shubra in 1909. Her father was an engineer at the Railway Authority, a stern but progressive man who encouraged her, when she graduated from Al-Saniyya School in 1929, to travel to England. She had won a scholarship, and she studied at the Hornsey School of Art, in north London, from where she graduated in 1934 with diplomas in drawing and painting. She returned to Egypt the year of her graduation to assume a pioneering role in what was then a relatively new vocation: she became an art teacher. Not that she was alone. There existed, she is keen to point out, an older generation of women - including Inam Said, Alice Barsoum, Adalat Kamal, and Aziza Youssef - who had studied abroad prior to moving into education. Nor was she alone when she traveled to England with her scholarship. From a nylon bag, she pulls a black and white photograph of five young women, including herself. They are standing in single file, the scholarship girls, and the photograph was taken the day before they traveled. She has kept it ever since, a souvenir from another age. On her return to Egypt, she taught at Al-Saniyya and, following its founding in 1938, at the girls' section of the Art Education College, where she was instrumental in formulating the syllabus. When the boys' section joined the girls' in 1959 she became head of the painting department, a post she held until her retirement in 1968. Though Kawkab insists that her real vocation was teaching she continued to paint prolifically, the two activities running in tandem. Her works can be found in public collections, including the Museum of Modern Egyptian Art, though she refuses, and adamantly so, the appellation of the artist.
  • Creator:
    Kawkab Youssef (1909 - 2009)
  • Creation Year:
    1959
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 24 in (60.96 cm)Width: 17 in (43.18 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Culver City, CA
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU1085111920262

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