In the years following Egypt's 1952 revolution, wealthy patrons of the arts disappeared from Egypt's cosmopolitan world and were replaced by the state, which by the 1960s exercised full control over all cultural activities, including the arts. Against this background, Liliane Karnouk analyzes and assesses the development of the visual arts in Egypt over the past forty years. Examining the work of those who are important cultural indicators and those whose works will have lasting value, she describes and illustrates in full color paintings, prints, and sculpture by fifty artists whose combined oeuvres illuminate the development of contemporary art in Egypt.