Recognizing Local Art

  Egyptian Artist Armen Agop was awarded the Presidential Medal of the Italian Republic in October at the closing ceremony of the 40th Edition of the Sulmona Prize for Contemporary Art in Sulmona, Italy.  A total 125 artworks, representing over 20 nations, were displayed in the civic museums of diocesan Sulmona. Agop was born in Cairo in 1969, graduated from Helwan University in 1992 and first came to Italy in 2000 after winning the Prix de Rome. In 2008 he was awarded “The Sculpture Grant” given once a year to a prominent international sculptor by the Swedish organization KKV-B.  In 2010, he received the international Umberto Mastroianni award in Piemonte, Italy where he realized his winning monumental fountain.  His works are represented in the Egyptian Modern Art Museum, Egypt, Aswan Open Air Museum, Egypt, Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art, Qatar, Villa Empain/Boghossian Foundation in Belgium, Giardino di Piazza Stazione in Barge, Italy,  Coral Springs Museum of Art in Florida, USA and the Bozzetti Museum in Pietrasanta Italy