Margo Veillon (1907–2003)

Born in Cairo, Margo Veillon lived and worked as an artist in Egypt for nearly a century. She spent much of her artistic career capturing the verve and movement of daily life in the Egyptian countryside, but also explored the Nile and the surrounding deserts through Nubia and into Sudan and Ethiopia. She held 78 exhibitions in Egypt and Europe over a span of 75 years, starting in Cairo in 1928—the last opened at AUC on her 96th birthday in Feburary 2003.

The American University in Cairo Press had a close working relationship with Margo Veillon beginning in the 1960s and has promoted her work in numerous exhibitions and publications, including The Bursting Movement, Egyptian Harvests, Egyptian Festivals, Painting Egypt, Nubia, and Witness of a Century. As part of a special trust agreement to preserve and promote the artistic legacy of Margo Veillon for future generations in Egypt and abroad, the AUC Press maintains a permanent collection of 100 masterpieces, as well as some 5,000 watercolors, drawings, graphics, and other works of art, at the Veillon Studio House in Maadi and at the new Margo Veillon Gallery of Modern Egyptian Art at AUC’s Downtown Cultural Center.