Effat Naghi came from a wealthy family of landowners from Alexandria and was initiated into drawing, painting, and music at a young age. In the late 1950s, Naghi’s work took a stylistic turn, nurtured by her interest in Egyptian history and folk cultures and characterised by vibrant colours and simplified forms and figures. The composition and naturalistic palette of this untitled portrait bust of a woman are more classical in nature. The vertical format, the ochre and brown shades, the model’s sophisticated hairstyle and white tunic, and the black lines accentuating her large eyes and eyebrows are reminiscent of Fayum portraits that covered the faces of upper-class mummies from Roman Egypt. However, Naghi’s use of chipboard, a material with visible particles that often served as a base for her paintings, along with the addition of bright green, blue, and pink highlights on the model’s face and hair, resulted in a modern interpretation of this ancient panel painting tradition. The background is animated by lines in black ink tracing what seems to be symbols and writings evoking the magic words that Naghi sometimes incorporated into her paintings.
Effat Naghi was one of the artists representing Egypt at Biennale Arte in 1950, 1952, and 1956.
—Nadine Atallah
