Article
Iraqi, 20th – 21st century, male.
Active since 1974 active in France.
Born 12 September 1948, in Shamyah (Mesopotamia).
Painter.
Akeel Abbas has shown his works in a number of group exhibitions, including the 2nd Arab Biennale, Kuwait in 1971; Centre Culturel Irakien, Paris in 1975...
Article
Eleanor Sims
[Shaykh ‛Abbāsī]
(fl 1650–84).
Persian painter. He was one of a small group of artists working in Iran in the second half of the 17th century who painted in an eclectic manner that drew on European images and Mughal Indian styles (see Islamic art, §III, 4(vi)(a)). He appears to have been the earliest of this group, which included Muhammad Zaman and ‛Aliquli Jabbadar, to integrate these ‘exotic’ elements into his work. He invariably inscribed his work with the punning Persian phrase Bahā girift chū gardīd Shaykh ‛Abbāsī (‘It [He] acquired worth when he became Shaykh ‛Abbasi’). The honorific it contains (‛Abbasi; also a type of coin, whence the pun) suggests that he was in the service of Shah ‛Abbas II (reg 1642–66). He also signed paintings during the reign of Shah Sulayman (reg 1666–94).
Shaykh ‛Abbasi illustrated manuscripts and painted miniatures on single leaves of paper and, almost certainly, on lacquered papier-mâché objects, such as penboxes and mirror cases. More than 15 of his known paintings are signed, 8 in one manuscript (Baltimore, MD, Walters A. Mus., MS. W.668), and 25 can be attributed to him. His subjects include portraits of Safavid and Mughal rulers and of the Virgin and Child copied from European prints. His style is unmistakable, combining sure draughtsmanship with pale, transparent colour washes. Unlike Muhammad Zaman, he had a minimal interest in illusionism, restricting himself to darkening the edges of trees and buildings along one side (usually the right). His figures, especially heads and faces, are Indian in appearance as well as in the stippled manner in which they are drawn. His later pictures seem more Indian than his earlier work; Zebrowski proposed a connection with Golconda painting (...
Article
Lebanese, 20th century, male.
Active from 1947 in France.
Born 22 November 1926, in El Mhaidthe, near Bikfaya; died 9 April 2004, in Paris.
Painter, engraver.
Shafic Abboud set out to become an engineer, but broke off his studies in his third year at the French school of engineering in Beirut in order to study drawing and composition at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts in ...
Article
Persian School, 14th – 15th century, male.
Active at the end of the 14th and at the beginning of the 15th century.
Painter.
Abd al Havy was a pupil of Shams al Din. In 1393, Tamburlaine (Timur) took him to Samarkand, where it is believed that he ran the city’s artistic workshops. No work has been attributed to him with any certainty....
Article
Egyptian, 20th century, male.
Born 1925; died 1988.
Sculptor, painter. Animals.
Salah Abdel Kerim studied at Cairo's faculty of art, continuing his studies in Italy and in Paris. He was appointed Professor of Decorative Art at the same faculty in Cairo and was later appointed Dean of Fine Arts in the city....
Article
Egyptian, 20th century, male.
Born 1932.
Painter.
Raouf Abdel Méguid studied at the arts faculty in Cairo in 1955, continuing his studies in Rome in 1959. He was later appointed Professor at the faculty where he had studied as a young man. His painting incorporates traditional motifs from Arabic architectural design which he reworks, often in a playful manner....
Article
Egyptian, 20th century, male.
Born 1938, in Alexandria.
Painter.
Moustapha Abdel Mooti studied at the fine arts faculty in Alexandria and was later appointed Professor there.
He paints monumental geometric forms, spheres on top of pyramids or pyramids on top of spheres or cubes, for example, which sometimes appear to punctuate dreamlike spaces, as in his work ...
Article
Persian School, 16th century, male.
Active at the end of the 16th century.
Born to a family originally from Shiraz.
Painter, draughtsman.
Abdous Samad worked at the Persian court and while there was chosen by the Mogul Emperor Humayun to teach drawing both to himself and to his son Akbar, the heir to the throne. He took over from Mir Sayid Ali and completed the illumination of the poet Amir-Hamzah, who recounted the adventures of the uncle of Mohammed. He ended his days as head of the royal treasury....
Article
Turkish, 19th–20th century, male.
Born 29 May 1868, in Constantinople (now Istanbul); died 23 August 1944, in Paris.
Painter and collector. Portraits, genre scenes, landscapes.
Abdul-Medjid was the son of Sultan Abdülaziz, and later Crown Prince of the Ottoman Empire and Caliph. He was taught painting by Fausto Zonaro, an Italian artist who worked in the Ottoman court ...
Article
Tunisian, 20th century, male.
Active in France.
Born 3 October 1890, in Mehdia, Algeria.
Painter, draughtsman. Nudes, portraits, landscapes.
Gilani Abdul-Wahab worked mainly in France. He began his artistic education in 1921 at the free academies of Montparnasse in Paris and at the Académie Julian....
Article
Iraqi, 20th century, male.
Born 3 July 1943, in Singar.
Painter.
Medhi Abid Ali exhibited in his own country as well as in Europe, including exhibitions in Paris and Malmö. In 1971, he was selected to take part in the Biennale des Jeunes in Paris....
Article
Turkish, 20th century, male.
Active in France from 1952.
Born 1913, in Istanbul; died 7 December 1993, in Villejuif (Val-de-Marne).
Painter, draughtsman, illustrator.
Group D.
Abidine began his artistic career in Istanbul when he was still extremely young. At the age of 15 he was producing catoons for the Turkish press. In ...
Article
French, 20th century, male.
Active from 1947 active in France.
Born 8 May 1919, in Cairo, Egypt; died December 1999.
Painter. Landscapes.
Raymond Abner studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Cairo from 1941-1943, then at St Martin's School of Art in London. In 1947...
Article
Egyptian, 20th century, male.
Born 1944, in Menoufia.
Painter. Figures.
Abou Chadi has taken part in a number of local group exhibitions. He was selected to participate in the exhibition entitled Aspects of Contemporary Egyptian Art ( Visages de l'art contemporain égyptien) at the Musée Galliera in Paris in ...
Article
Israeli, 20th century, male.
Born 1909, in Lithuania; died 1986.
Painter (gouache). Urban landscapes, figures, interiors with figures.
New Horizons Group.
This artist studied at the academy in Kovno (now Kaunas, Lithuania) in 1925; he emigrated to Palestine in 1929 and took up a teaching post that same year at the Beit Zera kibbutz, going on to work in the kibbutz seminary from 1952 to 1972. Abramovich lived in Paris in 1935 and 1936, working at the Académie de la Grande-Chaumière. In 1986, he was elected honorary president of the association of Israeli painters and sculptors....
Article
S. J. Vernoit
[Abū’l-Qāsim]
(fl c. 1816).
Persian painter. His only known work is a long composition depicting the Qajar monarch Fath ‛Ali Shah (reg 1797–1834) entertained by female musicians and dancers. The only surviving fragments of it are a painting of the shah (London, B. W. Robinson priv. col.) and three paintings of the entertainers (Tehran, Nigaristan Mus., ex-Amery priv. col.). The paintings of a woman playing a drum and of a woman playing a stringed instrument are signed raqam-i kamtarīn Abū’l-Qāsim (‘painted by the most humble Abu’l-Qasim’) and dated 1816, but the third painting showing a woman dancing is half-length and damaged. All the fragments share the same continuous architectural background and scale (a little less than life-size). Robinson has suggested that this mural might be the one described in the mid-19th century by the traveller Robert Binning, who reported that the house he occupied in Shiraz contained a painting of Fath ‛Ali Shah seated in state attended by ten women. The composition extended around three sides of the room and the figures were almost life-size. This identification suggests that Abu’l-Qasim might have been a native of Shiraz....
Article
Israeli, 20th – 21st century, male.
Born 11 November 1961, in Umm el Fahm.
Painter (including mixed media), draughtsman. Military subjects, figures, still-lifes, animals.
Asim Abu-Shakra was educated at the college of fine arts in Tel Aviv, where he worked as a teacher in 1987 and ...
Article
Lebanese, 20th century, female.
Born 1928, in São Paulo.
Painter.
Yvette Achkar was originally earmarked for a career in music, but enrolled instead at the Lebanese fine arts academy, where she studied from 1947 to 1952. She was influenced by the French painter Georges, who had settled in Lebanon at around this time. A French government scholarship enabled Yvette Achkar to spend time in Paris and to pursue her studies there. She went on to show her work at numerous group exhibitions, including in Belgrade (...
