Authentically Egyptian

Authentically Egyptian (Asli Masri) is a solo exhibition of sculpture and drawing by Essam Darwish at Al Mashhad Art Gallery in Zamalek, Cairo, from 27 September to 15 November 2026. It is curated by Ehab Ellabban.

The exhibition brings together about fifty-five works, bronze sculptures shown with charcoal drawings that are closely tied to them. Darwish told El Watan that the show took more than three years to prepare. Among the works he names are Harvest, Quenching, River Silt, Step, The Dervish, Melaya Laff, Striving, Column of Bread and The Cheese Seller (titles translated from Arabic). Ellabban lists the figures who recur across the show: the fellah and the peasant woman in the fields, the schoolgirl, the woman carrying provisions, the dervish, the woman in a melaya laff and the ibn al balad.

Darwish told Youm7 that, after years given to public commissions, he wanted to honour ordinary Egyptians, especially the rural woman and man: the woman, whom he sees as a figure of endless giving, and the man, whom he sees as a figure of struggle and pride. He presents them, he said, as stars. The catalogue includes an essay by the critic Fatma Ali, who compares the exhibition's questions of identity with Paul Gauguin's painting Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

Darwish is professor and head of the sculpture department at the Faculty of Art Education, Capital University, and belongs to the generation of Egyptian sculptors who emerged in the 1990s. His public statues include Saleh Selim at Al Ahly Club (2007), Sheikh Zayed in Sheikh Zayed City (2015) and Faten Hamama at the Cairo Opera House (2018). He also made the statues of Tawfiq al-Hakim, Ahmed Shawqi and Taha Hussein at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. He has taken part in the Beijing International Biennale and the Cairo International Biennale.

The exhibition was opened on 27 September 2026 by Hisham Sherif, a former Minister of Local Development.