FRIEZE MASTERS

London, UK

Booth G16

Albertz Benda Gallery & Rhona Hoffman Gallery

13-17 October 2021

The Armory Show

New York City, NY

JAVITS CENTER

SEPTEMBER 9 - 12, 2021

These Retirees Were Just Artists in Waiting

The brother of former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali started drawing from a young age, but he “belonged to a family that did not consider painting a profession,” he says. “Most of my family studied law with the prospects of involving themselves in the politics of Egypt. I did not see this as my path.” Boutros-Ghali worked in architecture and historic building restoration but retired in his early 60s to paint in his studios in Connecticut and Cairo. “My paintings reflect my architectural training,” he says. “Geometric precision with a sense of place."

Wassef Boutros-Ghali

Paintings: 2000 - 2016

JUNE 24 - JULY 30, 2021

CHICAGO, IL— Rhona Hoffman Gallery is pleased to present their first solo exhibition of Egyptian artist Wassef Boutros-Ghali (b. 1924, Cairo, Egypt). Situated as both constructivist compositions and Levantine landscapes, the collection of bold canvases hover between formal geometric abstractions and distilled figural representations of channels, canals, buildings struck by sunlight, and the limitlessness of the desert and the sea.

IMAGINARY GEOMETRY

Wassef Boutros-Ghali’s Art

By Barbara MacAdam

Wassef Boutros Ghali lives comfortably on the margins of diverse cultures, movements, and professions. Born and raised in Cairo, into a cultivated, well-traveled, and worldly family of statesmen and politicians, he experienced a traditional well-rounded education and read everything from Shakespeare to the pre-Islamic poets, which instilled in him a love of poetry that would pervade his life and work. He began studying art when he was 12 with the realist Czech-born painter Jaro Hilbert and continued painting and drawing, encouraged by Hilbert, until such time as he had to consider a profession.

Wassef Boutros-Ghali: A Retrospective

By Kaleem Hawa

Boutros Boutros-Ghali was an architect of the Camp David Accords. His brother, Wassef Boutros-Ghali was an architect. Wassef is also an artist. Compiling paintings and drawings from his personal collection, Wassef Boutros-Ghali: A Retrospective at albertz benda is a debut of sorts, the first time many of his works have been shown publicly.

Wassef Boutros-Ghali: A Retrospective

NOVEMBER 12 – DECEMBER 19, 2020
ALBERTZ BENDA / NEW YORK / ART

Wassef Boutros-Ghali trained as an architect and has worked as an architect. But his love of painting eventually won out. In his art, he says, he has “transformed reality by simplifying it … abolishing a subject and having only forms.” Boutros-Ghali’s careful handling of composition and geometry gives his abstract work a je ne sais quoi. It is reminiscent of Le Corbusier’s paintings, Patrick Henry Bruce’s Purism, and the Precisionist paintings of Manierre Dawson. Ineffably precise, with rectilinear shapes and compass curves held in exquisite balance, these paintings express emotion through color. The searching eye will detect here the sail of a boat, there a Cypress tree. —E.C.

Wassef Boutros-Ghali:

A Retrospective

November 12 - December 19, 2020

albertz benda, New York

albertz benda is thrilled to announce Wassef Boutros-Ghali: A Retrospective, the artist’s debut gallery exhibition, on view from November 12 to December 19, 2020.  

An accomplished painter and architect, Boutros-Ghali will present paintings and drawings from 1960’s through the present day with an emphasis on work of the past twenty years.  Drawn from the artist’s personal collection,  Retrospective marks the first time these pieces have been shown publicly.

THE ARMORY SHOW

MARCH 5 - 8, 2020 NEW YORK

Booth 808, Pier 94