Owais, Hamed (1919–2011)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Radwan
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Social Realism ◽  
Teaching Career ◽  
Diego Rivera ◽  
San Fernando ◽  
Gamal Abdel Nasser ◽  
Egyptian Group

Born in Beni Soueif, Egypt, Hamed Owais is one of the leading painters of Egyptian social realism. He was a partisan of the ideals of the Gamal Abdel Nasser era and was inspired by Mexican muralists, such as Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros. His work portrays the daily life of the Egyptian working class through a clear and direct style, reflecting the strength of his social convictions. Having graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1944, he pursued his studies at the Institute of Art Education in Cairo where he received his diploma in 1946. A year later, he founded, together with other artists of his generation, the Egyptian "Group of Modern Art". Following a teaching career at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria, he received a scholarship in 1967 to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid. On his return to Egypt, he served as the head of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria (1977–1979).

Nada, Hamid (1924–1990)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Radwan
Keyword(s):  
Art Education ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Traditional Approaches ◽  
Egyptian Group

Born in the popular neighbourhood of Khalifa in Cairo, Egypt, Hamid Nada is one of the leading figures of Egyptian modern art. He was one of the first Egyptian painters to introduce symbolism in his work, which was characterized by the expression of human inner feelings, and inspired by popular traditions, in his work. He joined the Egyptian ‘Group of Contemporary Art’, founded in 1946 by the painter and pedagogue Hussein Youssef Amin (1904–1984), who rejected the traditional approaches to art education and promoted freedom of expression. In 1948, Nada pursued his studies at the School of Fine Arts in Cairo, where he graduated in 1951. He studied in Luxor in 1956, and the following year, he was appointed to the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria. In 1961, he was named professor at the School of Fine Arts in Cairo and became the head of its Painting Department in 1977.

El-Sigini, Gamal (1917–1977)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Radwan
Keyword(s):  
Modern Art ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Public Monuments ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Metal Work ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Egyptian Group

Gamal el-Sigini is a prominent Egyptian artist, best known for his sculptures and metal work. He is renowned for representing powerful patriotic subjects by using bronze, stone, copper, wood and leather. He developed the technique of using hammered red copper for executing low-reliefs inspired by ancient Egyptian art. El-Sigini studied at the School of Fine Arts in Cairo under the sculptor Boris Frödman-Cluzel (1878–1959). After graduating in 1938, he founded a group called "The Voice of the Artist" (Sawt al-Fannān) to promote young Egyptian artists. He was a member of the Egyptian "Group of Modern Art" founded in 1947, and in 1951, he was appointed professor at the School of Fine Arts in Cairo. He became the head of the Sculpture Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria in 1958 until he was named director of the Sculpture Department at the School of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1964. During his career, he was commissioned to design several projects for public monuments in Egypt as well as medals for various official events.

Ayad, Ragheb (1892–1982)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Radwan
Keyword(s):  
Royal Academy ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Traditional Practices ◽  
Oil Paintings ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Free Section ◽  
Applied Arts

Born into a Coptic family in one of Cairo’s popular neighborhoods, Ragheb Ayad is a prominent member of a generation of Egyptian artists known as al-ruwwād or "pioneers." He was among the first students of the newly established School of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1908. Throughout his career, he depicted scenes of rural and popular daily life in his oil paintings and drawings. He created an original folklorist style inspired by the arts of Ancient Egypt and traditional practices. Graduating in 1911, he taught at the Great Coptic School before receiving a scholarship in 1925 to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. Ayad was the initiator of the idea of creating an Egyptian Academy in Rome. In 1930, he was appointed head of the Decoration Department at the School of Applied Arts in Giza. He was named director of the Free Section of the School of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1937. Between 1950 and 1955, he was the director of the Museum of Egyptian Modern Art.

Working-Class Fictions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Realism ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Reading Public ◽  
Industrial Community ◽  
Working People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Exciting Wave

This chapter explores why working-class fictions flourished in the period from the late 1950s through to the early 1970s and the distinctive contributions that they made to the post-war British and Irish novel. These writers of working-class fiction were celebrated for their bold, socially realistic, and often candid depictions of the lives and desires of ordinary working people. Their works were seen to herald a new and exciting wave of gritty social realism. The narrative focus on the individual signalled a shift in the history of working-class writing away from the plot staples of strikes and the industrial community, striking a chord with a post-war reading public keen to see ordinary lives represented in books in a complex and realistic manner. The cultural significance of such novels was enhanced as they were adapted in quick succession for a mass cinema audience by a group of radical film-makers.

scholarly journals A.R. MENGS TRA ROMA E MADRID: LE INQUIETUDINI DEL PITTORE FILOSOFO SULL’ISTITUZIONE ACCADEMICA NELLA SECONDA METÀ DEL XVIII SECOLO.

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-50
Author(s):  
Noemi Cinelli
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
The Other ◽  
Art Theory ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
San Fernando

It is difficult to frame Anton Raphael Mengs in a specific stylistic movement nowadays that the chronological divisions and the consequent definitions of the art of the Enlightenment are going to be more and more controversial. Because of his eclectic and cosmopolitan activity, his ideas about Ideal Beauty spread across the countries affected by the apprehensions and hopes related to the 18th century. The bohemian painter dedicated his entire life to the study of ancient art; his marble collection of the statues from the great Italian collections interested the artists coming to the Eternal City, and he consecrates esthetic models of different epochs. Mengs never get away from these models – Ancient Greece, Raffaello Sanzio, Tiziano Vecellio, Antonio Correggio. His presence in Spain was favored by propitious circumstances: the coronation of an erudite, educate king, lover of Fine Arts, Charles III of Spain, a king so intimately close to the painter to guarantee him his protection in the difficult relation between Mengs and the San Fernando Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. The relation between the Institution and the Bohemian get complicated because of the different ideas about the organization of the academy and the education of the students. Because of the little original sources, several matters have not been resolved, for example the issue about the false ancient fresco of Jupiter and Ganymede, or the controversy about the Peña case, that brought to the final breakup between the artist and the consiliarios in San Fernando Institution. Mengs focused his attention in an even worse matter about the direction of the academy: concretely, which competences had to have the consiliarios and which the teachers. When Mengs asked to be accepted in the academy, he undoubtedly thought that the Institution was structured as the other great one in which he took part in Italy, San Luca National Academy in Rome. Within Mengs’ proposals to raise the level of the Academy in Madrid there was the institution of anatomy and surgery teachings, which intent was to revolutionize the concept of painters and sculptors. In spite of the difficulties that the first painter of Charles III had during his stay in San Fernando, his acting had a fundamental role in developing the Art Theory and particularly in the European artists’ training.

Schapiro, Meyer (1904–1996)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Persinger
Keyword(s):  
Social Research ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
The United States ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
New School ◽  
Vincent Van Gogh ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Paul Cezanne

Art historian Meyer Schapiro was born in Šiauliai [Shavley], Lithuania, on September 23, 1904, but soon immigrated to the United States with his family in 1907. Schapiro grew up in the working-class, left wing, Jewish immigrant neighborhood of Brownsville, Brooklyn. He graduated from Columbia University with a Ph.D. in fine arts and archaeology in 1935 (having completed his dissertation in 1929). He spent his career at Columbia, though he also taught regularly at the New School for Social Research from 1936 until 1952. While trained as a medievalist, Schapiro was an early proponent of modern art, and over the course of his career he taught courses, lectured, and published on both fields. Through his lectures and publications, Schapiro’s ideas shaped several generations of artists and art historians. Though he published several books including those on Post-Impressionist artists Paul Cézanne (1950) and Vincent van Gogh (1952), his most respected ideas on both medieval and modern topics were published in articles. Schapiro is known for his innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to art history; he explored new art historical methodologies through the use of Marxism, psychoanalysis, and semiotics. He is also known for his essay "Style" (1953), a systematic consideration of past and current theories of style.

Nabaa, Nazir (1938--)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anneka Lenssen
Keyword(s):  
Communist Party ◽  
Rural Schools ◽  
Art Criticism ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Fine Art ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Puppet Theater ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

Nazir Nabaa, a respected Syrian painter, made his greatest contributions to Arab modern art in the 1960s and 1970s, when he contributed to the graphic identity of progressive political causes and the Palestinian liberation struggle. He joined the Syrian Communist Party in the 1954 and in 1959 was briefly jailed for this affiliation. After his release, he traveled to Cairo on a fellowship to study painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, there developing a heroic realist style around social and labor themes. After returning to Syria in 1964, Nabaa taught drawing in rural schools and worked with myth and folklife. Moving to Damascus in 1968, he worked as an illustrator and became involved in creative projects in support of political mobilization, including poster design, puppet theater, fine art painting, and art criticism. Between 1971 and 1975, Nabaa studied in Paris at the Academy of Fine Arts. Upon his return, he joined the faculty of the College of Fine Arts in Damascus. His later paintings became more fantastical, combining goddess figures with still lifes of fruits, tapestries, and jewelry. He also developed a parallel corpus of abstract paintings based on the exploration of texture and color.

Hassan, Faiq (1914–1992)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiffany Renee Floyd
Keyword(s):  
Modern Art ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
Young Age ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
European Modernism

Faiq Hassan was among the pioneers of Iraqi modern art. Along with Jewad Selim and Hafidh al-Droubi, Hassan held a premier position in the development of the modern art movement in Iraq and had a major influence on succeeding generations. Born in Baghdad, Hassan became interested in art at a young age. His talent was evident and he became the second recipient of a government scholarship to study art abroad. While studying at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Hassan was exposed to European modernism and produced copies of masterworks. When he returned to Baghdad after receiving his degree in 1938, Hassan took a position at the Institute of Fine Arts as the director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture. In this position, Hassan was able to focus on the education of young Iraqi artists, and he went to great lengths to ensure that his students had adequate equipment and instruction.

Drissi, Moulay Ahmed (1924–1973)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Holiday Powers
Keyword(s):  
Daily Life ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Short Series ◽  
Used Oil ◽  
Oil Paints ◽  
First Time

Moulay Ahmed Drissi was a self-taught painter who used oil paints to depict stylized versions of daily life. Drissi was interested not in straightforward representations, but in showing his coherent worldview, using minimal details in his images of people and landscapes. In 1945 he met painters from Switzerland who encouraged his interests and, from 1948 to 1956, he traveled extensively throughout Europe. His first exhibition was in 1952 in Lausanne, and he exhibited for the first time in Morocco in 1957 in Marrakech. That same year, Drissi exhibited his work at the second Alexandria Biennale, and was part of the foundational early exhibitions of Moroccan modern art including the first Paris biennale (1959) and the "Deux milles ans d’art au Maro" (Galerie Charpentier, Paris, 1963) exhibition. In 1957, Drissi founded the short-lived gallery L’Oeil Noir. He was the focus of an early monograph (1960) in a short series of Moroccan painters organized by Gaston Diehl.

Ahmad, Yousef (1955–)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samia Touati
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
The United States ◽  
University Of California ◽  
Museum Of Modern Art ◽  
Art Appreciation ◽  
Master Of Fine Arts ◽  
Instrumental Role

A writer, an art advisor, and an artist, Yousef Ahmad has contributed significantly to the evolution of art in Qatar. Ahmad took upon himself the responsibility to document and archive the development of art in Qatar. Ahmad has developed an innovative style of calligraphic painting, whereby numerous letters and words are transformed into abstract signs and manifest abstract arrangements. Being more inclined to create large-scale works, Ahmad depicts Arabic words in their variety of shapes with a particular focus on the construction of his composition. In 1982, Ahmad traveled to the United States, where he received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Mills College, University of California. Following his return to Qatar, Ahmad taught art appreciation for more than twenty years at Qatar University, where he met His Excellency Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali Al Thani. Sharing an avid love for art with HE Sheikh Hassan, Ahmad has played an instrumental role in collecting a variety of artworks which constitute the major collections of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art and the Orientalist Museum. He also acted as the first director for Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, then named the Museum of Arab Art.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document