For decades, the story of Modernism has been told through a largely European lens. But a powerful new book is shifting that narrative — placing Egypt firmly at the centre of 20th-century artistic revolution.

In The Egyptian Avant-Garde: Artists, Poets, and Rebels 1936–1973, art historian Fatenn Mostafa Kanafani uncovers the radical movements that reshaped Egypt’s cultural identity and challenged colonial, authoritarian and Western-dominated frameworks of art history. Far from being peripheral to global Modernism, Egyptian artists were actively redefining it.

At the heart of Kanafani’s research are two groundbreaking collectives: the Art and Liberty Group and the Contemporary Art Group. Founded in Cairo in 1939 by writer and intellectual Georges Henein, the Art and Liberty Group aligned itself with Surrealism — but not as imitation. Instead, it became a platform for anti-fascist resistance, creative freedom and intellectual rebellion.

Meanwhile, the Contemporary Art Group developed a distinctly Egyptian modern vocabulary, drawing from local identity, folklore and social realities without succumbing to simplistic religious or nationalist categorisation.

Kanafani argues that these movements should not be viewed as derivatives of European Surrealism, but as intellectual forces in their own right — responding to Egypt’s volatile political landscape, especially during and after the 1952 revolution and the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser.

This was a transformative period. Under Nasser’s leadership, Egypt experienced sweeping socialist reforms and ambitious nation-building projects. The 1950s and 60s became a cultural golden age — a time when cinema, architecture, poetry and fine arts flourished alongside political upheaval.

Kanafani revisits iconic cultural moments, including the reinterpretation of Mahmoud Mokhtar’s 1928 sculpture Nahdat Misr (Egypt’s Awakening), which became a rallying symbol for youth movements resisting British colonial influence.

The book also revives figures often sidelined in global art discourse: pioneering female artist Amy Nimr, and illustrator Eric de Némès, who reinterpreted European visual traditions through his adopted Egyptian lens.

More than an art history book, this is a political and cultural reawakening. It reveals an Egypt that was intellectually radical, ethnically plural and creatively fearless — a vision of the nation that continues to echo through contemporary debates.

The Egyptian avant-garde did not merely participate in Modernism. It transformed it.