Born in Luxor, Egypt, in 1932, Georges Bahgory is one of Egypt’s most renowned contemporary artists. Widely referred to as 'the granddaddy of Egyptian caricature,’ Bahgory is most famous for his political cartoons that have been featured in Arabic press for decades.
He studied at the Fine Arts Faculty in Zamalek and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. For the last thirty-five years he has been based in Paris, with frequent sojourns in Egypt. Bahgory says that he came to Paris to escape, to be free to express himself, and that his life in Paris has changed him.
Bahgory is a Coptic Christian from Fayoum, a small Nile delta town with a majority population of Copts who originally moved there to escape roman persecution of early Christians. He draws a great deal of inspiration from Coptic art, especially the faces of dead people painted on their tombs by early artists.
Works by Bahgory can be categorized as expressionist and cubist with bright colours appealing to folk art fans. He cites 20th century favorite Pablo Picasso, Egyptian modernist Abdel Hadi Al Gazzar, German expressionist Paul Klee, and Egyptian Fayoum portraits, among others, as his influences. However Picasso remains Bahgory’s idol and inspiration, and his own paintings and pencil drawings bear a striking resemblance to Picasso’s work.
He is a multifaceted and multidimensional artist, having written books, garnered numerous national and international honors and participated in over thirty exhibitions across Europe and the Middle East. Bahgory has mastered various fine art mediums, including drawing, painting and prints as well as photography and sculpture. His work has been exhibited in France, Egypt, the UK, Iraq, Jordan, Tunisia, and Italy.