Although Van Gogh's Poppy Flowers is now the most famous painting in Egypt, there are other just as precious artworks hidden behind the closed doors of the Al-Gezira Museum, argues Dena Rashed She remembers standing in the corridors of the Al-Gezira Museum in 1977, mesmerised by a painting by Renoir and not quite believing that she was really looking at a genuine work by a master painter. A new graduate from the Faculty of Applied Arts, she toured the museum at the time and today remembers the way some of the paintings were hung on the walls of dark corridors right under the dome. She decided to write an article for the magazine Al-Izaa wa Al-Television when she had the chance, in order to highlight the importance of these artworks and how the country should benefit from them. "I saw original paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and John William Waterhouse, as well as a statue by Rodin and not to mention Chinese ceramics and oriental carpets dating back centuries. I took a photographer with me to document these pieces so that people would be aware of the treasures of their country," Nesma Attallah said, recalling a piece she wrote almost 30 years ago. There were also paintings by Eugène Delacroix and Henri Matisse in the museum, she remembers. The Al-Gezira Museum in the Cairo Opera House grounds remains one of the best-known secrets of Egypt's art community, with many people knowing of its existence but few being aware of exactly what has happened to it over recent decades. The museum is not open to the public, and the works have not been put on display. There are no exact figures for the number of works that currently languish behind closed doors: some say 4,000 pieces, while others say more. Yet, it seems that everyone can agree that there are pieces worth millions of dollars in the building. Ahmed Nawar, who headed the National Council for Plastic Arts for two decades from 1988 onwards, explains that when he took up the post there was no museum in Egypt that followed international standards or was properly climate-controlled. Since then, there has been an ambitious plan to upgrade all the country's museums. The Al-Gezira Museum, he explained in 1989, would need investment of some LE30 million to turn it into a museum that met international standards. "By now, the figure might be closer to LE100 million," he says. The reasons behind the museum's closure are many. "The building was not suitable for the display of art pieces, and there weren't sufficient financial resources to finish the construction and renovation work. In addition, the roof was leaking, and the artworks were stored in poor conditions. As a result, the museum had to be closed, and the work of documenting and conserving damaged pieces commenced," Nawar said. Some pieces had been damaged as a result of poor storage. The building's dome, added after the museum was built, should be removed as it has no functional purpose and it takes up a lot of space. The first phases of the museum's renovation have been completed, Nawar says, but there is still work to be done on the gallery spaces and the climate-control and lighting systems. The storage areas have been completed. While work on the museum takes place, all the artworks have been stored carefully and checked for infestation or other problems. Nevertheless, some artworks have been damaged by poor climate control, he admits. Mustafa Abdel-Moeti, head of the State Arts Sector in the late 1970s and today a professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria, remembers the early history of the museum. "It was not actually a museum as such," he says. "It was more a kind of storage centre for art work confiscated from the former royal palaces. It was supposed to be turned into a proper museum, but this never happened." The building contains many valuable artworks, including portraits of the former royal family and paintings by famous Western artists. Abdel-Moeti draws a comparison between the Mahmoud Khalil Museum, from which Van Gogh's Poppy Flowers was stolen, and the Al-Gezira Museum. In his will Khalil directed that his residence be turned into a public museum to house his art collection. During Anwar El-Sadat's period in office, the museum was used by the presidency, and Abdel-Moeti remembers that he and Mohamed Abdel-Hamid Radwan, minister of culture at the time, had to take the matter to the People's Assembly in order to regain access to the building and turn it back into a museum. The Al-Gezira Museum was not so lucky. "It was dangerous to open the Al-Gezira building to the public as a museum, because there were many wooden artifacts and the electricity system needed maintenance. There was always a fear of fire. The building was not designed as a museum, and it would have cost millions to renovate it to the proper standards, more even than the Mahmoud Khalil Museum," Abdel-Moeti said. Among his memories of the collections are "Oriental and Turkish carpets, Islamic ceramics, paintings by Orientalist artists and by Renoir and Monet and the Norwegian artist Erling Enger." Abdel-Moeti remembers that the Ministry of Agriculture used to spray the place from time to time with pesticides. Since the building has been closed for decades, the artworks it contains have rarely been seen. According to Abdel-Moeti, some paintings and ceramics were moved to a presidential palace during Sadat's presidency in preparation for the visit of the former shah of Iran, Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, who lived in Egypt following the Iranian Revolution in 1979. "The documents were signed by the minister of culture at the time, and they are probably in the ministry's archives," Abdel-Moeti says, adding that he does not know whether the pieces were ever returned to the museum's collections. Saad El-Beheiri, general manager for administration and finance at the museum section of the Ministry of Culture, is also very much aware of the treasures in the Al-Gezira Museum. There has been a ministerial decree to turn the Al-Gezira Museum into a real museum, he says, and not simply a storage place. However, work started first at the Mahmoud Khalil Museum and somehow did not reach the Al-Gezira building. Like Abdel-Moeti, he draws a comparison between the two institutions. "The contents of the Al-Gezira Museum are worth more than double those of the Mahmoud Khalil, both in terms of number of artworks and value," he says. However, since the pieces were first placed in the museum, no inventory has been drawn up. "The artworks have been in storage for decades, and there is always a fear of infestation." Why haven't these works been displayed in any of Egypt's other museums, or even properly catalogued by the ministry? An online search does not turn up any reference to a painting by Renoir of a girl with a cat, apparently part of the Al-Gezira Museum collection and featured in the 1977 story in Al-Izaa wa Al-Television magazine. For his part, Nawar says that there were records for the Al-Gezira Museum, albeit old ones, but no up-to-date ones have been produced. As for the fact that the artworks have never been publicly displayed, "there are no museums in Egypt adequate for the display of such works," he says. According to El-Beheiri, one reason the Al-Gezira Museum has not been opened to the public is that no one dares to open such a Pandora's Box. He has never seen any of the most valuable pieces in the collection, and they have never been displayed in any of Egypt's museums. However, art historian and painter Esmat Dawestashi, who specialises in Alexandrian artists and is the former head of the Fine Arts Museum in Alexandria, has seen some of the gems of the Al-Gezira Museum's collection, mainly Orientalist paintings. Yet, he says, museums in Egypt rarely document the paintings they possess, and even those that do, such as the Modern Art Museum, only document paintings on display, leaving those in storage to fend for themselves. "We need greater transparency about the country's public collections, in order that people will be aware of the treasures of their country," he says. Dawestashi goes on to claim that many pieces confiscated after the 1952 Revolution from the former royal palaces "were either smuggled abroad, destroyed or stolen. What's left can't be properly displayed in the museums." The problem, he says, is a sociological one, since in his view there is no audience for museums in Egypt. "We build museums, but we don't endorse a taste for art and we don't advertise our museums," he says. While Dawestashi acknowledges that there has been something of a museum renaissance over recent years, he nevertheless points out that museums in Egypt lack qualified personnel and sufficient budgets. "It is unbelievable that at some museums there isn't enough money to replace the light bulbs. Imagine what could happen if the air- conditioning broke down." There is no proper understanding of the economics of museums, or of why the country is building museums and what it needs to do to spread appreciation of the art we have. "Each year, the collections of art on show in museums across the country should be re- evaluated. Artworks should be properly catalogued and advertised," Dawestashi said. The fact that all the country's museums are run by the government is another negative factor, Dawestashi argues. "The museums have become governmental entities, when they should be run by boards of trustees, and they should be open to charitable and other private sources of finance." Abdel-Moeti is also saddened by the status of museums in Egypt. "They are opened by an official, and then people forget that managing the place is about maintaining it," he says. If the ministry is not able to provide surveillance cameras, then it should provide more security personnel. If it cannot provide staff, then the museums should be closed, he said. The fact that Van Gogh's Poppy Flowers was stolen is a matter of grave concern. However, the fact that thousands of other art pieces remain hidden, whether from neglect or from a lack of proper funding, is if anything even more alarming.
