Badr Al Din Abu Ghazi (1920–1983) was an Egyptian art critic and writer who served as the minister of culture between 1970 and 1971.
Abu Ghazi was born in 1920.[1][2] He was a nephew of the leading Egyptian sculptor Mahmoud Mokhtar.[1]
Abu Ghazi was an art critic by profession and worked at various publications. He started his career at Al Fossoul which was published by Mohamed Zaki Abdel Kader.[3] In the early 1950s he joined the publications Rose Al Yusuf and Al Akhbar.[3] Then he worked for Al Hilal and for Al Majalla.[3] The editor of the latter was Yahya Haqqi in the 1960s.[3] In addition to such journalist activities Abu Ghazi was one of the members of the Supreme Council for Arts, Literature, and Social Science in the 1960s.[4]
On 18 November 1970 Abu Ghazi was appointed minister of culture replacing Tharwat Okasha in the post.[5] Abu Ghazi's term ended on 14 May 1971 when Ismail Ghanem was named the minister of culture.[5] Then Abu Ghazi served as the head of an art institution in Egypt, namely Société des amis de l’art, from 1972 to 1983.[3]
His son, Emad Abu Ghazi, also served as the minister of culture in the cabinet led by Prime Minister Essam Sharaf in 2011.[1] Abu Ghazi died in 1983.[2][3]
Abu Ghazi published various books one of which was about the Egyptian sculptor Mahmoud Mokhtar.[2] This book is cited as the most comprehensive study on Mokhtar.[2] Abu Ghazi also published another book on Mokhtar which was translated into French in 1949.[2]