Wassef Boutros-Ghali, Untitled, 2015. Acrylic on canvas, 38 x 38 inches.
CHICAGO, IL
.-Rhona Hoffman Gallery is presenting its first solo exhibition of Egyptian artist Wassef Boutros-Ghali (b. 1924, Cairo, Egypt). Situated as both constructivist compositions and Levantine landscapes, the collection of bold canvases hover between formal geometric abstractions and distilled figural representations of channels, canals, buildings struck by sunlight, and the limitlessness of the desert and the sea.
Two primary facts surrounding the artists storied biography are often asserted in relation to his paintings. The first is that he was born into a long lineage of statesmen and politicians; his brother (Boutros Boutros-Ghali) orchestrated the Camp David Accords in 1978, his grandfather (Boutros Ghali Pasha) was Egypts prime minister for over one year prior to his assassination in 1910. The second is that, though studying in the Beaux-Arts tradition, Boutros-Ghalis affinity toward the