01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Samir Rafi's The 1948 Nakba, with Footnotes, #52

Samir Rafi (EGYPT, 1926-2004)

The 1948 Nakba, c. 1952

Oil on board,

46 x 62cm (18 1/8 x 24 7/16in).

Private collection

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 Palestine was almost entirely extinguished. The term nakba also refers to the period of war itself and events affecting Palestinians from December 1947 to January 1949. More on the 1948 Nakba

Samir Rafi's  (Egypt, 1926-2004) talent was discovered early on in his life which prompted his teacher Hussein Youssef Amin, the founder of the 'Group of Contemporary Arts', to organize the artist's first exhibition in 1943. A work from this exhibition was acquired by the Art Museum of the Ministry of Education. Rafi continued his education and graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts, Cairo in 1948. 

In the late 1940s Rafi joined Amin's Group of Contemporary Arts. The artistic objective of the members was to employ authentic Egyptian traditions in their art by applying popular symbols and philosophy, in order to counter imported and Orientalist trends, thus producing an indigenous form of contemporary art. Rafi's works of the 1950's were described as fresh, vibrant and daring.

Unlike his contemporaries, Rafi's works do not include elements of traditional Egyptian culture and symbology. Most of his work revolves around the relationships between men and women in a cosmopolitan environment.

Throughout his career Rafi repeated the subject matter of the woman figure with a wolf which was intended to symbolize unfaithfulness. Many of his paintings reflected an angry and serious theme. In the current work he has chosen to merge the faces of the wolf and the woman in a very distinct surrealist style. More on Samir Rafi

Please visit my other blogs: Art Collector, Mythology, Marine Art, Portrait of a Lady, The Orientalist, Art of the Nude and The Canals of Venice, Middle East Artists, 365 Saints and 365 Days, also visit my Boards on Pinterest

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