African Art

Tunisian, 20th century, male.

Born 26 May 1921, in Tunis.

Painter, miniaturist. Genre scenes, local scenes, figures. Wall decorations, stage sets, designs for stained glass.

Jélal Ben Abdallah was a student at the school of fine art in Tunis. Initially he was a miniaturist, having studied traditional Islamic art and developed an oriental style, often defined as Tunisian. He portrays the traditions and ceremonies of Tunisian life in a make-up inspired by the ancient miniatures, using a range of warm ochres and soft browns. He also proved himself to be capable of adapting the images from these miniatures to a much larger format, that of murals, especially popular in the banks of Tunisia. His pleasant illustrations of Tunisian traditions are very popular with the public. As well as a certain ease of style and subject-matter, he can also achieve a certain poetic vein in his work....

Tunisian, 20th century, female.

Active in France from 1954.

Born 5 September 1930, in Ferryville.

Painter (mixed media/gouache), collage artist. Stage sets, designs for tapestries.

Lily Designe lives and works in France, where she married. She uses a variety of techniques occasionally based on collage, with frequent references to the supernatural aspects of the theatre. She tends more towards the magical than the fantastic....

Egyptian, 20th century, male.

Born 1940, in Cairo.

Painter, watercolourist, illustrator, decorative artist. Decorative motifs. Stage costumes and sets, designs for jewellery.

A pupil at the Académie Julian, the École des Arts Decoratifs and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Georges Doche went on to show his work in several public exhibitions and, in particular, at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants in Paris, as well as at several private galleries in Geneva, Tokyo and London. He had a number of solo exhibitions, including in Paris (...

Egyptian, 20th – 21st century, male.

Active in Italy.

Born 1957, in Cairo.

Painter, installation artist. Figures, portraits, animals.

Fathi Hassan was born in Nubia and first worked as an actor and a scenographer. In 1984, he obtained a diploma at the school of art in Naples. He has lived and worked in Italy since ...

Algerian, 20th century, male.

Born 14 March 1930, in Mostghanem; died 1991.

Painter, watercolourist, illustrator, engraver. Stage sets.

Mohamed Khadda, a self-taught painter, was a communist who wrote the theoretical treatise Component of a New Art ( Élément pour un art nouveau) on Algerian painting. Although Kadda's art has its basis in the abstract, he by no means renounces all contact with nature, which underpins all his landscape paintings. Unexpected signs, inspired by Arab-Berber symbols, invest his canvases with violence and emotion. By trade a typographer, Khadda took great pleasure in devising a form of abstract calligraphy that he constantly renewed. This technique is at its most unashamedly exuberant in his painting ...

(b Idumuje-Ugboko, Delta State, Dec 20, 1935).

Nigerian painter, sculptor, architect, and set designer. Nwoko’s works of art and architecture have been understood as exhibiting the tensions between modernism and indigenous design. Nwoko’s own published discussions of the political history of Nigeria and his recommendations for improvements in education, medicine, environmental conservation, and mechanical engineering have inspired art histories that describe him as not only an artist–architect but as an advocate for social reform.

Nwoko was one of the first of his generation of contemporary Nigerian artists to study fine arts at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, Zaria (1957–61). During his time as a student in Nigeria, Nwoko (along with classmate Uche Okeke) designed the Pavilion of Arts and Crafts, Lagos, in celebration of Nigerian Independence (1960). After his graduation, Nwoko won a scholarship from the Congress for Cultural Freedom to study scenic design at the Centre Français du Théâtre. Nwoko continued his studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, choosing to add the disciplines of fresco painting and architectural decoration to his educational programme....