Winner of the Grand Merit Award – 2025
The Farouk Hosny Foundation for Culture and Arts announced that its Board of Trustees unanimously approved the nomination of the eminent artist Mohamed Mandour for the Grand Merit Award for 2025, valued at a quarter of a million Egyptian pounds.
The distinguished writer Mohamed Salmawy, Secretary-General of the Award and Member of the Board of Trustees, stated that the Grand Merit Award differs from the Foundation’s other prizes in that it is granted to a major figure whose outstanding achievements have enriched Egyptian cultural life in the fields of visual arts, literature, cinema, or music, in recognition of their entire body of work. He emphasized that, unlike the other awards which are dedicated to young talents, this award is reserved for established figures in their fields, serving as a tribute of appreciation and acknowledgment of the value of their contributions.
Salmawy added that the great ceramist Mohamed Mandour extended the authentic Egyptian art of ceramics—rooted in the masterpieces of ancient Egyptian, Coptic, and Islamic traditions—into the aesthetics of contemporary ceramics in its finest form. Mandour’s ceramic works are the living embodiment of this rare fusion between traditional heritage and modernity. This is no surprise for an artist who grew up in the Fustat district, working from a young age in the potteries of that unique area—one of the rare places in the world that has continuously produced ceramics for hundreds of years. With his artistic genius, Mandour was able to transform the clay of Fustat into works that soar into the horizons of modern global trends in ceramic art.