[EGYPTIAN SURREALISM - WITH MANUSCRIPT TEXT BY HENEIN TO GEORGES BATAILLE] Hassan El Telmissani: peintures et travaux automatiques du 5 au 12 février 1948. Studio Raccah, 15 Soliman Pacha

Cairo: Studio Raccah, 1948. Once folded invitation card (26.5 × 11.7 cm). Slightly toned and with a small brown stain; else very good.

Exceptionally rare invitation card to a solo exhibition by the Egyptian surrealist Hassan El Telmissany. Printed on it are also introductory words by Georges Henein, the founder and organizer of the Egyptian Surrealists, who wrote a dedication to Geroges Bataille in his own hand of eight lines on this copy: "Savez-vous que de jeunes Égyptiens lisent Bataille, au fond de leurs demeures lézardées, dans la nuit réfractaire des vieux quartiers, et leurs yeux ont une façon inquiétante de s'ouvrir, leurs yeux deviennent à leur insu le dortoir d'un avenir usé." ( Do you know that young Egyptians read Bataille, deep in their cracked dwellings, in the refractory night of the old quarters, and their eyes have a disquieting way of opening, their eyes unwittingly becoming the dormitory of a worn-out future.)

Due to his origins, Henein was predestined to establish and organize the exchange between Egyptian and European avant-gardists. As the son of a Coptic diplomat, he was familiar with moving between different cultures. He learned French in Rome when he attended the French grammar school Lycée Chateaubriand. English, French, and Italian were spoken fluently in his family. However, he only learned Arabic later from a Greek-Catholic monk. He began his law studies in Paris, which he eventually completed in Cairo. There he came across the francophone cultural organization "Les Essayistes" (The Essayists), which was founded in Cairo in 1928 on the initiative of a number of intellectuals. Its publication organ, the journal "Un Effort", was a shining platform for the presentation and discussion of the various currents of the European avant-garde. Henein became one of its most important and best-known authors.

After visiting Breton in Paris, he devoted himself entirely to surrealism and the task of making it known in Egypt. In 1937, he organized a conference broadcast on the radio as part of "Les Essayistes", which made him Breton's ambassador in Cairo. The first supporters of Surrealism in Egypt gathered around him: the poet Edmond Jabès, the journalist Émile Simon and the painters Kamel Telmisany, Angelo de Riz and Ramses Younan. In 1938, the group gave itself the name "Art and Freedom", in reference to the manifesto "Pour un art révolutionnaire indépendant", which Breton had written in Mexico in collaboration with Trotsky. This was followed by a series of exhibitions and individual publications. The war interrupted personal contact with Breton, whom Heinen did not visit again until 1947 in Paris.

Telmisany (or el-Telmisany) was born north of Cairo, in Al-Qalyubiya, and would study veterinary medicine, although his true calling was in the arts. He would co-found the "Art et Liberté" group with Henein and Ramses Younan, but his career as a painter and draughtsman was short-lived, because he eventually felt that surrealism would not manage to assert itself in Egypt's political and cultural climate. After World War II, he became active as a Marxist filmmaker and is known primarily for cinematic works.

From the estate of Georges Bataille.