‘I feel that the paintings of the illustrious artist, Hamed Nada express many of the thoughts that we do not have the courage to acknowledge. To convey his vision he invented an alphabet whose letters are formed by the movement of a woman's body, of birds, or animals, or even the implements of daily use. Lines are the masters of Nada's paintings - bent, round, straight - flowing freely without boundaries, or limits between earth and sky. I came to feel the artist takes into himself the colors, the scent, the emotions of life - and these images burn themselves into his heart and brain and are then released as his art.’ -Dr. Mohamed Said Farsi on Hamed Nada

The mature paintings of Hamed Nada are filled with anecdotal details and from the 1970s, Nada’s oeuvre gradually shifted from the psychological aspects of working-class subjects to more joyful and energetic scenes such as the present work, Brass Music. The elongated, dancing figures are reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs and evoke a sense of folklore, woven from a tapestry of Arabian Nights, pharaonic mythology and popular legends - rich in musical vibrations to create a lively atmosphere celebrating the pleasures of life. The stylised, vivacious figures, both human and animal, float around the pictorial space which seem to take on a life of their own with swirling calligraphic forms. As Nada suffered gradual loss of hearing in the 1980s, the gestures and movements of his figures became ever more extreme, leaving one with the impression of almost being able to hear the vitality of the french horns depicted here.

An important member of the Contemporary Art Group in Cairo, which included prominent members such as Abdel Hadi El-Gazzar (1925 - 1966) and Sami Rafi (1931 - 2019), paintings from Nada's early period of the 1940s and 1950s were marked by social-realist tendencies focusing on the condition of the urban working-class. From the mid-1950s onwards, Nada's style underwent major changes. He explored the work of Ragheb Ayad (1892 - 1982), from the first generation of Egyptian pioneer artists, who had reinterpreted pharaonic art in his portrayals of ordinary Egyptians. Nada also took inspiration from Nubian folk art, as well as primitive African art that French archaeologists had started to excavate during expeditions in Algeria, where some of the first human communities lived in 8,000 BC.

The son of a religious sheikh, Hamed Nada was brought up in the poor traditional neighbourhood of Al-Khalifa near the Syeda Skina Mosque in Cairo. Around him the young Nada experienced all the life and vibrancy of the old city, rich in medieval Mamluk buildings and gracious Ottoman-era monuments. At that time, puppet shows were performed in the streets amidst the seething street markets and these, together with the Mawlid festivals in this eclectic setting, were to have a profound impact on the artist's subsequent work.