Gazibia Sirry (b.1925 Cairo), An Egyptian Family, 1955, Oil on canvas, 134 x 68.5 cm

Gazibia Sirry is an Egyptian painter, she was born in 1925 in Cairo. She studied Fine Arts and later went to become a professor at Helwan University, she worked in the department of the Faculty of Art Education. Sirry grew up surrounded by independent women, her father passed away when she was four years old, and her mother took charge of Gazibia’s education alongside her grandmother. Gazibia Sirry joined the Modern Art Group at the beginning of her career. To Sirry inspiration came from Cairo’s working-class neighborhoods in the 1950’s and during this time she rented a room in Helmeya and continued to be inspired by the reality of the poverty that spread and controlled most of the Egyptian people. Sirry focused a lot on capturing women of all social classes in her early work, but she especially focused on the lower-class women, capturing the reality of their lives. The works in this gallery narrate artists' perspectives on society throughout modern history and in contemporary times recording family dynamic and marking key moments in industrial progress, politics, and culture. In the painting, An Egyptian Family, Gazibia Sirry captured a realistic moment in an Egyptian Family, she paints a mother, and her five children, however the artist makes it difficult to identify the characters depicted in the painting, especially the mother and her oldest daughter. Sirry uses bright red to paint the walls and the floor of the room, there’s a window on the right side, showing the clear blue sky in the background. The mother is shown looking to the right and holding her youngest child, who is portrayed, holding on to his mother's neck and is naked, her other two children, a girl and a boy are standing Infront of their mother holding hands and facing each other. Next to his mother, on the left, her oldest son is shown holding a white pigeon which represents peace, love and honor. Finally, the oldest sister is barely shown in the back, holding on to her brother with one hand, the sister is shown wearing the trinational turban on her head, and the rest of the family is shown wearing traditional kaftans.