Visiting Egypt shouldn’t only be about its world famous monuments and its aweing natural landscapes. Tourism in Egypt can easily be about monuments-rich governorates like southern Luxour and Aswan and sea-hugging cities like Sharm El-sheikh and Hurguda, but if you are a caricature lover then this one is for you. Northern Fayoum governorate near the capital Cairo has some of the most beautiful landscapes in its Tunisia Village that hosta leading caricature museum. Here are some things you didn’t know about Egypt’s Caricature museum.
The museum was founded by the Egyptian Artist Mohamed Abla as an independent effort aided by his fellow Egyptian artists in Tunisia village to be the only one in the Middle East besides another one in Israel.
The museum was founded as a part of Fayoum’s art center in 2009 following the crisis of the offensive Danish cartoons depicting prophet Muhammed. It hosts a collections of 500 Egyptian and international original artworks.
Founding the museum was a dream that haunted the major Egyptian cartoonist Zohdy Al-Adawym who founded a union and a magazine for the caricature art, then came Able to make his dream come true.
The museum was founded in Fayoum’s Tunisia village to encourage Egyptians and tourists to visit Fayoum. Abla describes the village as the capital of art given the dominance of artists amongst residents.
The museum depicts caricatures that has sarcasm, politics and social issues in them. The most famous collections are of the leading Egyptian cartoonists Hegazy, Al-bahgoory, Sarokhanin addition to the Spanish cartoonist Santiny who was one of the first artists to draw caricature in Egypt.
The museum hosts a winter art academy that has artists and professors from all around the world to hold six-week caricature, sculpture, video and painting workshops.
The museum aims at saving the Egyptian history of caricature for scholars who want to study it and for the future generations, besides educational role.
There, you will find a white board that has the signatures of all caricature artist who visited the museum.
The museum isn’t designed to make profits but rather spread the art. The minimal money gained from ticket fees are spent on maintenance.
