El Zeini's art offers a commentary on the impacts of societal constraints, norms, prejudices and discrimination. It was through these ‘el moulid’ and ‘el zar’ periods that El Zeini was able to enrich his imagination and that of his audience and find refuge in it, thus transmitting to us his message in a poignant and enduring manner.
Zaccaria El Zeini (1932-1993) was raised in the popular district of Sayyida Zienab in Old Cairo and graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in the city’s capital, where his graduation project revolved around the birth of the female saint, the namesake of the area where he was born. He was a postwar Modernist who received his formal training in painting in Venice, graduating from the Academy of Pravana, and it was in Italy that he gained his fascination with Greco-Roman architecture, which would develop into a preferred subject in his painting. He later would become a professor at his alma mater, the Faculty of Fine Arts, and ended his career as head of its painting department. El Zeini’s oeuvre spans predominantly expressionist and abstract-figurative painting styles, with a strong proclivity towards using different personal symbols in his work and throughout several periods. These symbols connote each of the three wives he had during his life, and he cryptically places these symbols as markers throughout his paintings, whether discreetly or overtly. His formative upbringing in the Sayyida Zeinab district remained one of the most significant influences on his trajectory as an artist, having been exposed to since birth the popular celebrations and festivities surrounding the birth of the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammed.
The first period was predicated on the quintessentially Egyptian practices and folk rituals and rites of ‘el moulid’ and ‘el zar.’ His work has always been distinguished for portraying the human figure (face and torso) enclosed in a geometric shape of either a square or a rectangle, often in a prominent contrasting color like green or red against backgrounds in predominantly neutral and earthy textured tones. Despite this rigid, enclosed portrayal, the viewer still feels the sympathy that the painter emotes toward these human beings living or oftentimes trapped, in this constrained and confined space in the reductionist form of a house, door or window. El Zeini used this form of representation as a commentary on the impacts of societal constraints, norms, prejudices and discrimination. It was through these ‘el moulid’ and ‘el zar’ periods that El Zeini was able to enrich his imagination and that of his audience and find refuge in it, thus transmitting to us his message in a poignant and enduring manner.
In some early works when he concentrated on the plight of the woman, and constantly featured women enclosed by such simplified bars, windows or doors, in his basic geometric enclosures, in doing so he was criticizing the passivity of women and her role vis-à-vis her society. In his second period, El Zeini devoted himself to the artistic study of the concept of garbage and waste, ‘el zibala.’ El Zeini emphasized the salient topic of waste management on the streets of Cairo, he accomplished this by often dividing the painting in two and depicting abstract forms of detritus, debris and discarded waste throughout the canvas and on either side of the divide. This period was a thoroughly original artistic undertaking, and underscored the artist’s innate predilection for dedicating his art to social themes and with an underlying message that permeated his work, which have remained especially pertinent in today’s world. In his final period, El Zeini focused on the impression of flowers, introducing us to an alternative view of the subject by using geometric design and three-dimensional shapes. El Zeini also left us various examples of impressive lithography, which he became deeply involved with later on towards the end of his career and death, covering the more calming and serene themes of landscapes and flowers.