Shafik Gabr Book Signing

Egyptian industrialist and fine art collector Shafik Gabr attended The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) in Maastricht this March for a preview of his new book Masterpieces of Orientalist Art: The Shafik Gabr Collection. The celebration began with cocktails at the Derek Johns Ltd. Booth. (Mr. Johns is a dealer in old master paintings.) Guest were then transported for a private dinner and fireworks display at the Netherland's famed Chateau Neercanne.

Shafik Gabr

When talking about his art collection and his book, Mr. Gabr speaks of his desire to use art as a way to bridge the gap between the world's cultures. The paintings in his collection were made by European artists who traveled to the Orient during the Eighteen and Nineteenth Centuries. The world they saw must have been strange and exotic to them, but by looking and commemorating what they saw in their paintings, they changed the way Europeans saw the Orient. And by setting up their easels to paint, they changed the way their subjects saw the artists. It's that old truism, "You can't look at something without changing it (and you)." And to understand, first you must look.

The guests at the party came from six different continents and included: Bernard Aikema, Eugenie Apergis, H. E. Mr. Shaukat Aziz (the former PM of Pakistan), Wol Balston, Isabel Bresset, Ugo Camerino, Angela Chen, Count Marc d’Hauteville, Larissa Dickinson, Adrian Dannatt, David D'Arcy, Shafik Gabr (the evening’s host), Susan Gutfreund, Wendy Goldsmith, Cees Hagoort, Oscar Humphries, Daphne and Derek Johns, Brooke Mason, Jonathan Marder, Surbhi Modi, Karan Modi, Ann Nitze, Claude Piening, Guy Stair Sainty, Simon Smit (Foremost Flawker), Iris Schutte, Guy Trebay, Peter Trippi, Burcu Yuksel, Iris Schutte, Dutchess Alexandra von Croy and her son Carl Philipp Von Croy, Patrick Westerburger, Burcu Yuksel and Carolin Young.

Shafik Gabr, Susan Gutfreund, Derek Johns and Lucy Innes

HE Mr. Shaukat Aziz (Foreign Prime Minister of Pakistan),
Susan Gutfreund and Isabel Bresset

Angela Chen and HE Mr. Shaukat Aziz (Foreign Prime Minister of Pakistan)

For more information:

Click here for The Reception for the Shafik Gabr Orientalist Art Collection at the Harold Pratt House and Peterson Hall at the Council of Foreign Relations

Click here for Welcome to Gulu Exhibition and Art Benefit at the United Nations

Click here for The European Fine Art Fair

Click here for The Chateau Neercanne.

 

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