Surrealism in Egypt: Modernism and the Art and Liberty Group

The Surrealist, Cairo-based Art and Liberty Group, (jama’at al-famm wal hurriyyah – Art et Liberté) was founded on December 22nd 1938 with the publication of its manifesto Long Live Degenerate Art. Rejecting the convergence of art and nationalism, and the academic style endorsed by the Egyptian state and bourgeois moral conventions, its members aligned themselves with a complex, international and evolving Surrealist movement spanning cities such as Paris, London, Mexico City, New York, Beirut and Tokyo.