FAIRFIELD, CONN.- Fairfield University Art Museum will present Hieroglyphs to Hype: The Modern Afterlife of Ancient Egypt, on view from September 18 – December 12, 2026, in the Museum’s Bellarmine Hall Galleries.
This exhibition will explore the enduring fascination with ancient Egyptian art and culture (dubbed “Egyptomania” by 19th-century Europeans) through a selection of paintings, prints, photographs, sculpture, and decorative art ranging from the early 19th century through the present day. These objects, from the humble to the refined, from the shamelessly commercial to the Afrofuturist, represent the range of artistic responses to—and misconceptions about—ancient Egyptian visual culture. Lenders to the exhibition include the Yale Center for British Art, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Hood Museum of Art, and Yale University Art Gallery, in addition to artists and private collectors.
The exhibition is curated by Museum Registrar Megan Paqua, who explains that the idea for the show emerged from her other role as adjunct professor of Art History & Visual Culture, teaching courses on ancient Egyptian art and archaeology. “Students frequently come into the course assuming that they know ancient Egypt because they’ve been exposed to it so much through popular culture, everything from The Mummy movies to the Ancient Aliens TV show,” she says. “They’re often surprised to discover how much of that cultural context has been filtered through two centuries of ‘Egyptomania.’”
Paqua holds an MA in Egyptology from The American University in Cairo, where she spent multiple seasons excavating at Tell el-Amarna with the Amarna Project. She notes that paradoxically, enthusiasm for Egyptian symbols and motifs contributed to the erasure of the ancient Egyptian people themselves, as their beliefs and customs became first exoticized, and later commodified, to suit popular taste in Europe and beyond. The exhibition explores these developments across a range of cultural artifacts, from the “high” end like David Roberts’ 1849 painting The Hypostyle Hall of the Great Temple of Abu Simbel, Egypt, to the “low” end—silver spoons, candlesticks, and even a trash bin, all created in “Egyptianizing” designs.
The exhibition also looks at how artists have responded not only to ancient Egypt, but to the ensuing centuries of Egyptomania through some of the genre’s most popular themes: “mummies,” King Tut, and Cleopatra, among others. For example, Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos’s series I Want to Look like Cleopatra explores the cosmetic surgery procedures required to turn portraits of the real Cleopatra VII into someone who resembles Elizabeth Taylor (also represented in the exhibition in Audrey Flack’s photorealistic portrait Lux Eternal).
Finally, the exhibition examines how contemporary artists of color have sought to incorporate ancient Egyptian identity into their modern practice. Lorraine O’Grady’s Sisters, from the Miscegenated Family Album, speaks to Black diasporic identity by pairing an image of the artist’s sister Devonia with portraits of the famous bust of Queen Nefertiti. Sara Sallam’s I Prayed for the Resin Not to Melt asks the visitor to confront the invasive reality of the excavation of King Tut’s tomb and subsequent examinations of his mummified remains through a retelling of these events from the deceased king’s perspective.
An illustrated exhibition catalogue will be available in the galleries. A robust selection of free programming will complement the exhibition, including an opening night conversation with the curator, a gallery talk exploring the significance of mummification in ancient Egypt, a lecture on ancient Egypt in video games, family programs, and more.
