Amy Nemer

Amy Nimr (1898–1974) was an Egyptian artist and writer known for her association with the Cairo-based Art and Liberty Group. Born in Cairo to an upper-class family, she received a predominantly Western education, attending the Cheltenham Ladies' College and later the Slade School of Fine Art in London from 1916 to 1920. At the Slade, she studied under post-impressionist painter Walter Sickert.

Nimr's artistic career began in Europe, where she first exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1925 and held her first solo exhibition at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in 1926. In Egypt, she gained recognition through multiple exhibitions at the annual Salon du Caire starting in the early 1930s. Her work attracted the attention of prominent figures such as Mahmoud Sa'id and Jean Moscatelli. Between 1930 and 1935, she exhibited at the Warren Gallery in London, the Vignon Gallery in Paris, and the Kasr al-Doubarah Gallery in Cairo. During her time in Europe, she became acquainted with surrealism and exhibited alongside artists like Barbara Hepworth and Robert Medley. Upon returning to Egypt in the 1930s, she joined the Art and Liberty Group and married Walter Smart, a high-ranking British official and scholar of Arabic and Persian. Together, they played a significant role in the early stages of the group's activities, hosting salons in their Zamalek home and supporting artists financially.

Nimr's early paintings depicted aspects of Egyptian life using traditional European techniques. In 1943, after the tragic death of her son Micky due to a landmine explosion in the Saqqara desert, her work took a darker, surrealist turn, featuring corpses and disfigured bodies. These works were exhibited in the mid-1940s at the Exposition de l'Art Indépendant. Following the 1952 Egyptian Revolution and the Suez Crisis in 1956, Nimr and her husband relocated to Paris, where her work became exclusively abstract. Her last known exhibition was held at the Galerie de Marignan in Paris in 1961. She passed away in Paris on January 24, 1974.