01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Akram Shukri, with Footnotes, #53

Akram Shukri (Iraq, 1910-1986)

Untitled, c. 1950

Oil on board

56 x 46cm (22 1/16 x 18 1/8in)

Private collection

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 of this society went on to found other important artist groups; Faik Hassan was the leader of La Societe Primitive which later became known as The Pioneers, and Hafiz Droubi formed a group known as The Baghdad Group of Modern Art. More on Akram Shukri

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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Farid Aouad's Homo Flux with Footnotes, #53

Farid Aouad (Lebanese, 1924-1982) 

Homo Flux, c. early 1970
Oil on canvas 
16 3/8 x 51in. (194 x 129.5cm.)

Private collection

The painting depicts a group of an undefined number of men and women standing at a bar. Expressing an overriding sense of solitude, this scene of lonely strangers at the bar is the artist's way to convey his own feeling of loneliness. Tormented by his memories of Beirut, his inability to be integrated into Parisian society and his extreme poverty, Aouad was in some ways a hermit, having never married and spent time locked up in his studio far away from socialising. The painting of these crowds is two-fold; firstly to express his own solitude while attempting to be social and secondly to stay warm from the harsh French winters as these cafés and bars would offer him refuge from his own poverty. More on this painting

Born in South Lebanon in 1924, Farid Aouad lived in Paris most of his life. Aouad is best known for paintings that express solitude. He used scenes of lonely strangers in bars and cafés. Moreover, his attachment to the familiarity between the streets of old Beirut and Paris are a recurring emotional fixture in his work.

In all the scenes he painted, his acute observation and ability to capture the life of the moment, mixed with his free yet mature graphic style of painting, were the key elements of his success. Aouad became a rare witness of artistic boldness in his generation and showed his art at numerous exhibitions in Lebanon, France, Germany and Italy. Unfortunately, his work was never fully appreciated during his lifetime and he lived out his last years in ill health and poverty.

In a 1977 letter, Aouad wrote: “I produced very little this year: always the same challenge with painting, looking for something that is still missing.”

In 1979, he wrote: “It is cold, windy, and rainy. It is not easy to work. The tourists are hiding the fishermen and their cases, but I always try to find more evident perspectives.” More on Farid Aouad

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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Bashir Hammouda's Still Life, with Footnotes, #55

Bashir Hammouda (Libya, born 1948)
Still Life, c. 1977
Oil on canvas, framed
46 x 46cm (18 1/8 x 18 1/8in).
Private collection

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 to Libya to work at Al-Fateh University where he became a very prominent professor until his retirement. His art practice spans over several decades and he has been widely exhibited. Hammouda beautifully captures his subject matters with an expressive and emotive approach and a vibrant colour palette. More on Bashir Hammouda

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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, OMAR EL-NAGDI's Le Grand Marché, with Footnotes, #56

OMAR EL-NAGDI (EGYPT, 1931-2019)

Le Grand Marché/ The Great Market, c. 1990

Oil on canvas
290 x 232cm (114 3/16 x 91 5/16in).
Private collection

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 - based on singular forms of calligraphy, predominantly in the repetition of the Arabic numeral for one and the first letter of the Arabic alphabet.

"When I work, I like to work with no limits, that is why I like large format painting," he says. "It satisfies me and gives the chance to paint a subject with all its elements and details."

El Nagdi is the recipient of sixteen Egyptian and international art awards, and his paintings have been acquired by museums and renowned institutions throughout the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in Cairo, the Museum of Modern Art in Venice, the Museum of Fine Art in Alexandria, the Museum of Modern Art in South Korea, the National Library in Paris, the Congress Library in the USA, the Museum of Pistoia in Italy, the Rasking Foundation in England, the Centre of Aesthetics Research in Italy, and the Museum of the White House in the USA.

A multi-disciplinary artist, he works in oil painting, watercolour, sculpture, etching, and mosaic, and has had his artwork exhibited alongside those of international greats such as Dali, Monet and Picasso. A renowned name on the international art scene. More on Omar El Nagdi

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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Ahmed Shibrain's Letters from Khartoum, with Footnotes, #54

Ahmed Shibrain, (SUDAN, 1931-2017)

Letters from Khartoum, circa 1970

Mixed media on paper

36 x 36cm (14 3/16 x 14 3/16in).

Private collection

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 the founders of The Khartoum School in the 1960s. The Khartoum School was a movement of visual artists who cultivated a new visual style called Sudanawiyya, which expressed local and Pan-African traditions alongside Western influences. Through the use of calligraphy, the aesthetics of hurufiyya (transforming Arabic letters into abstract shapes; named after harf the Arabic word for letter) and Islamic motifs, the movement attempted to convey the cultural fabric of Sudan. After returning to Khartoum, Shibrain became the head of the graphics department at his former college in 1970, and its dean in 1975. He was known for his design of presidential medals, postal stamps and various ebony murals. He held numerous exhibitions in Africa and abroad, published several books and critical essays and held many functional and academic positions in Sudan. In 1966 Shibrain founded the non-profit Shibrain Art Gallery which showcases Sudanese artists. More on Ahmed Shibrain

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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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Louay Kayali's Cake Seller, with Footnotes, #53

Louay Kayali (Syria, 1934-1978)

The Cake (Kaak) Seller, c. 1974

Oil on masonite

97 x 76cm (38 3/16 x 29 15/16in)

Private collection

"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 societal marginalization. Kayyali conveys a mixture of empathetic admiration and sad affection for his poor but noble subject matters. More on this painting

Louay Kayali (20 January 1934 – 26 January 1978) was a Syrian modern artist.

Kayali was born in Aleppo, Syria in 1934 and studied art in the Accademia di Belle Arti after having studied at the Al-Tajhiz School where his work was first exhibited in 1952. He met Syrian artist Wahbi al-Hariri there and the two would share a friendship for the rest of Kayali's life. Al-Hariri would become his mentor as he was for artist Fateh Moudarres that Hariri introduced to Kayali in 1955. Moudarress and Kayali would together represent Syrian modern art at the Venice Biennial Fair. 

Kayali graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 1961 and returned to Syria where he started his career as a fine arts professor at Damascus University. That same year, the International Modern Art Hall of Damascus hosted his exhibit of 28 oil paintings on canvas and 30 sketches

He suffered from depression and died in 1978 from burns incurred from his bed catching fire, reportedly from a cigarette. More on Louay Kayali 

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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

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01 Painting, Middle East Artists, Raghed Ayab's The Monastery, with Footnotes, #51

Raghed Ayab, (EGYPT, 1892-1982)

The Monastery, c. 1965

Oil on panel

55 x 84cm (21 5/8 x 33 1/16in).

Private collection

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 years. In 1925 he both received a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of fine Arts in Rome. After obtaining his diploma in 1928 Ayad returned Egypt the following year.

Ayad was the first to propose the idea of creating an Egyptian Academy in Rome on the model of the other foreign academies established in the Italian capital. In 1930, he was appointed the head of the decoration department at the School of Applied Arts in Giza where he remained until 1937. Following this appointment he became professor and director the free section of the school of Fine Arts in Cairo. He also worked as a curator and played an integral role in reorganizing the Coptic museum in 1941. In 1950 he was named director of the Museum of Egyptian Modern Art .

Ayad was also known for painting religious scenes and exterior views of the Coptic monasteries. Coptic monasticism saw a revival that started in the 1960s during the papacy of Pope Cyril VI of Alexandria. More on Ragheb Ayad

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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