Tag: Middle East
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02 Paintings, Middle East Artists, Ayman Baalbaki’s Anonymous, with Footnotes, #56
Ayman Baalbaki (born in 1975 in Adaisseh, Lebanon) is a Lebanese painter. He studied at the Lebanese University and at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris. His large-scale expressionist portraits of fighters made him one of the most popular young Arab artists. Born the year the civil war started in Lebanon, Ayman…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Lorna Selim’s Baghdadiyat, with Footnotes, #57
Lorna Selim received a scholarship to study at the Slade School of Fine Arts, London, where she received a diploma in painting and design in 1948. The following year she received an Art Teachers’ Diploma (ATD) from the London University Institute of Education. From 1949–50 she taught art at the Tapton House Grammar School, Chesterfield, England.…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Akram Shukri, with Footnotes, #53
Akram Shukri is considered one of the most important artists in the development of the Iraqi modern art movement, and although primarily an architect he was the founding member of the Society of Artists and Art Lovers in 1941. This group included important Iraqi artists such as Jawad Selim, Hafiz Droubi and Faik Hassan. Numerous members…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Bashir Hammouda’s Still Life, with Footnotes, #55
Bashir Hammouda was born in 1948 in Tripoli, Libya. Hammouda graduated from the Accadenua di Belle Arti in Rome in 1974, having mastered painting, engraving and printing during his time in Italy. He became an assistant teacher at Tripoli’s Al-Fateh University. Hammouda subsequently went to study in Budapest, Hungary where he attained a PhD. Hamouda returned…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, OMAR EL-NAGDI’s Le Grand Marché, with Footnotes, #56
Painter, musician and director Omar El Nagdi was born in Cairo in 1931 and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, after which he continued his art education in Russia and Italy, graduating from the Academy of Venice in 1965. In the 1960s, he initiated a series of works for which he is still renowned today –…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Ahmed Shibrain’s Letters from Khartoum, with Footnotes, #54
Ahmed Shibrain is an integral and leading figure of Modernism in Sudan. Shibrain was born in 1931 in Berber, Sudan. In the early 1950s, Shibrain studied at the Khartoum Technical Institute, and in 1957 he went onto studying at the Central School of Art and Design in London. Alongside his influential contemporaries Shibrain was one of…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Louay Kayali’s Cake Seller, with Footnotes, #53
“The Cake (Ka’ak) Seller” is a prime examples of Kayyali’s mature period in which key characters from Syrian daily life merge to the forefront. In this body of work, Kayyali highlights the protagonist’s struggle and vividly captures how political upheaval affected the Syrian population’s demeanor, shaping a culture and society that led to poverty and…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Samir Rafi’s The 1948 Nakba, with Footnotes, #52
The 1948 Palestinian exodus, also known as the Nakba, literally “disaster”, “catastrophe”, or “cataclysm”), occurred when more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs — about half of prewar Palestine’s Arab population — fled or were expelled from their homes, during the 1948 Palestine war. Between 400 and 600 Palestinian villages were sacked during the war, while urban…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Raghed Ayab’s The Monastery, with Footnotes, #51
Ragheb Ayad was born in 1892 into a Coptic family in Cairo. Ayad was one of the first students to enrol in the School of Fine Arts in Cairo. After graduating in 1911, Ayad worked as a drawing teacher at the Coptic Secondary School in Cairo and made several trips to France and Italy during those…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Omar El Nagdi’s The Grand Market, with Footnotes, #50
Painter, musician and director Omar El Nagdi was born in Cairo in 1931 and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, after which he continued his art education in Russia and Italy, graduating from the Academy of Venice in 1965. In the 1960s, he initiated a series of works for which he is still renowned today –…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Omar El Nagdi’s Gamilla, with Footnotes, #49
Painter, musician and director Omar El Nagdi was born in Cairo in 1931 and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, after which he continued his art education in Russia and Italy, graduating from the Academy of Venice in 1965. In the 1960s, he initiated a series of works for which he is still renowned today –…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Nasser Ovissi’s Esphahan, with Footnotes, #48
Nasser Ovissi is an American-Iranian painter whose work is characterized by stylized figures of Arabic women and horses. Set amidst geometric patterns and decorative elements, his figures seem to merge into and out of the space behind them. “My work is dedicated to the beauty of life and I hope those who experience my work will…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Gamal El Seguini’s A View of Imbaba Bridge, Cairo, with Footnotes, #47
Born in a popular neighborhood of Cairo in 1917, Gamal El Seguini joined the School of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1933 to study sculpture. Four years later, and after his graduation, he traveled to Paris, where he discovered the works of the French sculptors Jacques Bourdelle and August Rodin. The outbreak of world war II obliged…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Gazbia Sirry’s The Boat, with Footnotes, #46
Gazbia Sirry (born 1925) is an Egyptian painter. Born in Cairo, Gazbia Sirry studied fine arts and became a professor in the painting department of the Faculty of Art Education, Helwan University. Gazbia is considered one of the leading Egyptian artists, with a varied and innovative career of more than 50 years. Serry’s art expressed the…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Munir Fahim’s Nubian Women, with Footnotes, #45
Egyptian women highly valued personal adornment and it was worn by all social classes. In these artistically unique and striking depictions, the Nubian women are seen adorned with bold golden and silver native jewelry. More on this work Munir Fahim was born on June 26, 1935 in the port city of Rasheed located in Egypt’s Beheira governorate.…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Kadhim Hayder’s Divine Horses, with Footnotes, #44
Ten mythical white horses, their abstracted bodies collapsed together in grief, wail out to a bare, nocturnal landscape. An isolated green horse turns his body away from the group, exiled under a blood red moon. This painting is from one of Iraqi artist Kadhim Hayder’s most notable series, The Epic of the Martyr, based on…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Dia Azzawi’s Portrait of the Non Existent Bird, with Footnotes, #43
Born in Baghdad in 1939, Dia Azzawi started his artistic career in 1964, after graduating from the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad and completing a degree in archaeology from Baghdad University in 1962. In 1969, Azzawi (with Rafa Nasiri, Mohammad Muhriddin, Ismail Fattah, Hachem al-Samarchi and Saleh al Jumaie) formed the New Vision group…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Bibi Zogbé, with Footnotes, #41
Bibi Zogbé was born in the Lebanese seaside village of Sahel Alma, Labibé Zogbé. She migrated to Argentina at the age of sixteen. Her professional artistic career began in the 1930’s with a number of exhibitions in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, in Chile and Uruguay, in Paris and elsewhere. At the end of the…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Bibi Zogbé, with Footnotes, #40
Bibi Zogbé was born in the Lebanese seaside village of Sahel Alma, Labibé Zogbé. She migrated to Argentina at the age of sixteen. Her professional artistic career began in the 1930’s with a number of exhibitions in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, in Chile and Uruguay, in Paris and elsewhere. At the end of…
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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, with Footnotes, #39; Alaa Ismail, Untitled
Iraqi born Alaa Ismail (1974) started practicing the art of calligraphy from a young age. He studied various artistic disciplines at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Baghdad, including decorative arts, Islamic architecture, glass painting and Islamic Art, graduating in 2003. Currently living in Damascus, Syria, Ismail has taught and lead many projects looking…