An Egyptian artist in Rome

Al Ahram Weekly (Zahi Hawass)

Hawass is using his Dig Days column this week to talk about Farouk Hosni, the Egyptian Minister of Culture and well known modern artist. If you're interested in finding out more about Hosni, he has his own home page (but beware - as soon as you click on the link it starts to play music). Here's an extract from Hawass's article:

Farouk Hosni left Paris to work at the Egyptian Academy in Rome. At that time Abdel-Hamid Radwan was the minister of culture; Radwan wanted Mohamed Ghoneim to be the head of the academy. However, the late Sufi Abu Taleb and late Atef Sidqi convinced Radwan that Hosni was the best candidate for the job. Hosni established great activities in Rome and brought the Egyptian cultural scene to the Italians. He became good friends with many Italian Egyptologists, such as Sergio Donadoni and Silvio Curto.

Sidqi was appointed by President Hosni Mubarak to be Egypt's prime minister, and at the same time Ahmed Qadri became the head of Egypt's Antiquities Organisation. Qadri gave a voice to antiquities but most of his work was criticised, especially because of the Sphinx restoration project that he oversaw. The architect who was in charge of the reconstruction of the casing stones that the Pharaohs had put on the Sphinx's body replaced them with stones that completely changed the proportions of the Sphinx. Also the cement could be seen on the blocks, distracting from the beauty of this masterpiece. Another incident that drew significant criticism was a student who had never before worked in restoration was commissioned to paint the Citadel.

Sidqi understood how valuable Hosni was. At that time, Hosni was not well known by the public, but he was known and respected as a talented artist within the cultural community.