Art et Liberté: Rupture, War and Surrealism in Egypt (1938 - 1948) is the first comprehensive museum exhibition of its kind about the Art and Liberty Group (Art et Liberté - Jama'at al-fann wa al-hurriyyah), a surrealist collective of writers and artists living and working in Cairo. Five years in preparation, the exhibition consolidates the findings of extensive primary research and hundreds of field interviews conducted in Egypt and worldwide. It showcases more than 110 paintings, works on paper, and photographs dating from the late 1920s until the early 1950s. The exhibition equally features more than 150 archival documents, historical photographs, film footage, and primary manuscripts, most of which have never been exhibited before. In reuniting these artworks and documents, drawn from over 46 public and private collections from Egypt and 12 other countries, this historic exhibition charts for the first time a precise chronology and offers an all-encompassing presentation of Art et Liberté. Founded on December 22, 1938 upon the publication of their manifesto Long Live Degenerate Art, the group provided a restless generation of young artists, writers, intellectuals and political activists, with a heterogeneous platform for cultural and political reform. The exhibition highlights the active role that Art et Liberté played within a complex international and fluid network of surrealists, spanning cities such as Paris, London, Mexico City, New York, Beirut and Tokyo. At the dawn of the Second World War and during Egypt's colonial rule by the British Empire, Art et Liberté was globally engaged in its defiance of Fascism, Nationalism and Colonialism. Through exploring the various themes that permeate the work of Art et Liberté, the exhibition sheds light on the group's advocacy of the liberation of artists from the confines of geographical boundaries and political propaganda, and their uncompromising faith in the empowerment of humanity. Through their new definition of