Marwan El Dewey

Marwan El Dewey (b. 1950, Cairo) is an Egyptian photographer, sailor and farmer who lives between Egypt and Greece. After leaving behind a career in anthropology and archeology in Egypt he began his photographic career in 1973 by borrowing cameras from friends to document his intimate experiences of life in Paris. The results were exhibited as a series of abstract black & white nudes in 1977 at a Parisian gallery. Receiving high accolades from critics, he moved to New York in 1979 to continue his work, exhibiting there in 1980. By 1982, after his return to Cairo, El Dewey made an impact on the local art scene by continuing to produce and exhibit abstract nudes, later becoming a pioneer in commercial practice, inspiring a new generation of professionals that changed how the photographic image was received and employed locally. He continued to exhibit representing Egypt and winning awards globally in Rome, Bari and as far away as Tokyo. His interests have traditionally taken him back to nature. As a dedicated landscape photographer, El Dewey initiated a national project to document Egypt’s wilderness and landscapes. Most recently El Dewey built a darkroom in his studio allowing him to revisit his archive of negatives and continue his production of special edition silver gelatin prints.

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