Painting Egypt

Margo Veillon, one of Egypt's best loved artists, here presents a sampling of her work from throughout her career, as represented in a legacy bequeathed to the American University in Cairo. The collection includes work from across the decades of her career as well as across a variety of media. Although Margo has lived part of her life in Europe, it is clearly Egypt that has held her imagination in all these long years of artistic innovation. Her work is characterized by an ability to capture and depict the energy of a specific moment in time, be it a toss of wheat in the air to separate the chaff, the stoic bride in a wedding procession, or a horse dancing in a tent at a "moulid". In addition to being an interpreter of movement and energy, she is a chronicler of rural Egyptian life - a life that is fast disappearing under pressure of modern urbanization. In fact, it has been said of Margo Veillon by Charlotte Hug: "She strove to...convey, incisively and simply, the subtle alchemy of water, earth and life marking the tempo of the country's evolution from its sandy origins." This book encapsulates this alchemy as presented in the AUC Permanent Collection.