Youssef Nabil

Youssef Nabil (born 6 November 1972) is an Egyptian artist and photographer.

Background Born in Cairo, Egypt, Nabil started his photography career in 1992, shortly before leaving to New York and Paris to work in prominent photographers' studios. In 1999, Youssef Nabil had his first solo exhibition in Cairo. Through the years he remained a close friend of the Egyptian-Armenian studio portrait photographer Van Leo (Leon Boyadjian, 1921–2001), who encouraged Nabil to leave to the West. In 2003, Youssef Nabil was awarded the Seydou Keita Prize in the Biennial of African Photography in Bamako.

In 2001, while visiting Cairo, British artist Tracey Emin discovered Nabil's work and later nominated him as a future top artist in Harper's article Tomorrow People. Nabil left Egypt in 2003 for an artist residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris. In 2006, he moved to live and work in New York.

Many have been subject to Nabil's lens and distinctive technique of hand-colouring gelatin silver prints, including artists Tracey Emin, Gilbert and George, Nan Goldin, Marina Abramović, Louise Bourgeois, and Shirin Neshat; singers Alicia Keys, Charlotte Rampling, Isabelle Huppert,

Nabil's work has been presented on numerous international solo and group exhibitions, at venues including the British Museum, London; Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA, MMK Museum für Modern Kunst, Frankfurt, MASP Museu de Arte de São Paulo, IVAM Institut Valencià d'Art Modern, Valencia, Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, La Maison Rouge, Paris, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle, MACBA Centre de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum of Photography, Thessaloniki, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Biennale of the Visual Arts of Santa Cruz, Kunstmuseum, Bonn, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah; Kunstmuseum, Bonn; The Third Line, Dubai; Galerist, Istanbul; Nathalie Obadia gallery, Paris; Yossi Milo gallery, New York; Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla; Aperture Foundation, New York, Villa Medici, Rome and Palazzo Grassi, Venice.

Youssef Nabil is part of various international collections including Collection François Pinault, Paris; LACMA Museum, Los Angeles; LVMH The Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris; Sindika Dokolo Foundation, Luanda, La Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; the joint collection of The British Museum and The Victoria & Albert Museum, London; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City; Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; the Guggenheim Museum, Abu Dhabi; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York and PAMM, Pérez Art Museum Miami.

Four monographs have been published on Youssef Nabil's work – Sleep in My Arms (Autograph ABP and Michael Stevenson, 2007), I Won't Let You Die (Hatje Cantz, 2008), Youssef Nabil ( Flammarion, 2013) and Once Upon A Dream ( Marsilio, 2020).

Nabil lives and works in Paris and New York City.

Films You Never Left (2010) with Fanny Ardant and Tahar Rahim I Saved My Belly Dancer (2015) with Salma Hayek and Tahar Rahim Arabian Happy Ending (2016) The Beautiful Voyage (2021) with Charlotte Rampling and Youssef Nabil

Selected exhibitions

Selected solo exhibitions 1999 – Premiere, Cairo-Berlin Art Gallery, Cairo, Egypt 2001 – Obsesiones, Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City, Mexico 2001 – Youssef Nabil, Townhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art, Cairo, Egypt 2003 – Pour un Moment d'Éternité, Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France 2007 – Portraits / Self-portraits, The Third Line Gallery, Dubai, U.A.E. 2007 – Sleep in my arms, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa 2008 – CINEMA, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa 2009 – I Live Within You, Savannah College of Art and Design-SCAD, Atlanta, U.S. 2009 – I Will Go to Paradise, The Third Line Gallery, Dubai, U.A.E. 2009 – I Won't Let you Die, Villa Medici, Rome, Italy 2009 – Youssef Nabil, GALERIST, Istanbul, Turkey 2009 – Youssef Nabil, Volker Diehl Gallery, Berlin, Germany 2010 – I Live Within You, Savannah College of Art and Design-SCAD, Savannah, U.S. 2010 – Youssef Nabil, Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, U.S. 2011 – You Never Left, Nathalie Obadia Gallery, Paris, France 2012 – Youssef Nabil, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France 2013 – Time of Transformation, The Third Line Gallery, Dubai. U.A.E. 2017 – Deep Roots, Nathalie Obadia Gallery, Brussels, Belgium 2017 – I Saved My Belly Dancer, Pérez Art Museum PAMM, Miami 2019 – Youssef Nabil, Institut du Monde Arabe, Tourcoing, France 2020 – Youssef Nabil, Once Upon A Dream, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy 2025 – I Saved My Belly Dancer, Los Angeles County Museum of Art LACMA, Los Angeles, U.S.

Selected group exhibitions 2003 – Rites sacrés, Rites profanes, Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie, Bamako, Mali 2004 – Bamako 03: Contemporary African Photography, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona MACBA, Barcelona, Spain 2004 – Nazar: Noorderlicht, The Fries Museum, Leeuwaarden, The Netherlands 2004 – Rites sacrés, Rites profanes: Zeitgenossiche Afrikanische Fotographie, Kornhausforum, Bern, Switzerland 2004 – Staged Realities: Exposing the Soul in African Photography 1870–2004, Michael Stevenson Contemporary Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa 2005 – Arab Eyes, FotoFest Houston, Texas, U.S. 2005 – L'Égypte, Saline Royale d'Arc et Senans, France 2005 – Nazar, Photographs from the Arab World, The Aperture Foundation Gallery, New York, U.S. 2005 – Regards des Photographes Arabes Contemporains, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France 2006 – 19 miradas. Fotógrafos árabes contemporáneos, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla, Spain 2006 – Arabiske Blikke, GL Strand Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark 2006 – Images of the Middle East, Danish Center for Culture and Development, Copenhagen, Denmark 2006 – Word into Art, The British Museum, London, U.K. 2007 – Dialogues Méditerranéens, Saint-Tropez, France 2007 – Gegenwart aus Jahrtausenden, Zeitgenössische Kunst aus Ägypten, Kunstmuseum, Bonn, Germany 2008 – Disguise, Michael Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa 2008 – Far From Home, North Carolina Museum of Art NCMA, North Carolina, U.S. 2008 – Last of the Dictionary Men, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle, U.K. 2008 – Perfect Lovers, Art Extra, Johannesburg, South Africa 2008 – Portraits II, Galeria Leme, São Paulo, Brazil 2008 – Regards des Photographes Arabes Contemporains, Musée National d'Art Moderne et Contemporain MNAMC, Alger, Algeria 2009 – ARABESQUE, Arts of The Arab World, The Kennedy Center, Washington DC, U.S. 2009 – Unconditional Love, The Venice Biennale – 53rd International Art Exhibition, Venice, Italy 2010 – Portraits, Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Brussels, Belgium 2010 – Told, Untold, Retold, Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar 2011 – Facing Mirrors, Museum of Photography, Thessaloniki, Greece 2011 – Of Women's Modesty and Anger, Boghossian Foundation, Brussels, Belgium 2012 – Édouard et Cléopâtre, Égyptomanies depuis le XIXe siècle, Boghossian Foundation, Brussels, Belgium 2012 – Light from the Middle East: New Photography, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, U.K. 2012 – Pose/Re-Pose: Figurative Works Then and Now, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, U.S. 2012 – Tea with Nefertiti, Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar 2012 – The Royal Academy of Arts Encounter, Cultural Village Foundation Katara, Doha, Qatar 2013 – Ici, Ailleurs, Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille, France 2013 – Matisse à Nice, Palmiers, Palmes et Palmettes, Musée Masséna, Nice, France 2013 – Safar Voyage, Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, Canada 2013 – Sous Influences, Arts Plastiques et Psychotropes, La Maison Rouge, Paris, France 2013 – Tea with Nefertiti, IVAM Institut Valencia d'Art Modern, Valencia, Spain 2014 – Ri-conoscere Michelangelo, Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, Italy 2014 – The Divine Comedy, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory Revisited by Contemporary African Artists, MMK Museum für Modern Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany 2014 – The Divine Comedy, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory Revisited by Contemporary African Artists, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, U.S. 2015 – Home Ground, Aga Khan Museum of Art, Toronto, Canada 2015 – Islamic Art Now: Contemporary Art of the Middle East. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA, LA, U.S. 2015 – The Botticelli Renaissance, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany 2015 – The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists. Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C, U.S. 2016 – Botticelli Reimagined, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK 2016 – Dream Light, Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), Miami, U.S. 2016 – Hips Don't Lie, Centre Pompidou Málaga, Spain 2016 – Looking at the World Around You, Fundación Banco Santander, Madrid, Spain 2016 – Portrait of the Artist as an Alter, FRAC Haute-Normandie, France 2016 – The Blue Hour, Centro Cultural de Santa Cruz, Biennale of the Visual Arts of Santa Cruz, Bolivia 2017 – A Painting Today, Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa 2017 – Hips Don't Lie, Centre Pompidou Paris, France 2018 – Al Musiqa, Cité de la Musique – Philharmonie de Paris, Paris, France 2018 – Beyond Words, 4th Mardin Biennial, Turkey 2018 – BOTH, AND. Stevenson Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa 2018 – The Shapes of Birds: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa, Newport Art Museum, Rhode Island, U.S. 2019 – The 13th International Cairo Biennale, Cairo, Egypt 2020 – Histories of Dance, MASP Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil 2020 – Orientalisms, IVAM Institut Valencià d'Art Modern, Valencia, Spain

Publications