On December 22, 1938, Egyptian writer Georges Hanein published a manifesto in French and Arabic entitled “Long Live Degenerate Art.” The text marked the founding of the Art and Liberty group, a Cairo-based collective of male and female artists and writers who embraced Surrealism as a means to promote radical political and social reform. The group was enmeshed in a growing international Surrealist movement, founded by André Breton, whose aesthetic vision rebelled against rational artistic traditions to embrace emancipatory, spontaneous art. Most histories of interwar Egypt focus on its complex political dynamic, the rise of the efendiyya, and the strengthening of national identity. In this paper, I explore the artistic and intellectual production of a movement that broadens and challenges those narratives. The Art and Liberty group embraced surrealism as an experimental movement engaged in a project of social revolution. The group rejected fascism, nationalism, and colonialism and promoted globally engaged artistic production grounded in local idiom. I use a selection of the artists’ works and biographies to explore the tension between embracing a cosmopolitan art form while elevating vernacular forms to create more “authentic” art in interwar Egypt.