SOCIAL IMPACT · CULTURE & HERITAGE
The Foundation is working on a catalogue raisonné of the work of Queen Farida. It also works to keep her legacy alive – a legacy not limited to her own painting, but extending to the promotion of the artists of Egypt and the Middle East, which she pursued throughout her entire life. Her work, and all that she expressed through it, is an important legacy of identity for young generations in Egypt, in the Middle East and abroad.
I The Queen
Born Safinaz Zulficar in Alexandria in 1921, into a distinguished family – her grandfather Mohamed Saïd Pasha was Prime Minister of Egypt under Khedive Abbas Hilmi II, and her uncle was the painter Mahmoud Saïd – she married King Farouk in January 1938 and took the name Farida.
As Queen of Egypt she chaired the Women’s Committee of the Egyptian Red Crescent. After her divorce in 1948 and the end of the monarchy, she turned to painting – the passion that would define the rest of her life
II THE ARTIST
Largely self-taught, she trained in Cairo studios and later in Beirut with the painter Jean Guvder, before studying art history at the École du Louvre in Paris. Her first solo exhibition opened in Paris in 1968.
Her painting moved from luminous, Impressionist- inspired Egyptian landscapes to bold experiments with mixed media – and to spiritual, Sufi-inspired works with enigmatic turbaned figures
PARIS · MID-1970s
PALMS AT DUSK · 1987
RAMADAN · 1975
III · OUR SUPPORT
ABU DHABI, DUBAI, UAE · CAIRO, EGYPT · MIAMI, USA