Category: Countries
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(1906 – 1997) Sophie Halaby (b. June 26, 1906, in Jerusalem or Kiev) was a professional Palestinian watercolor artist whose life spanned most of the 20th century. Her primary subject matter was the landscape of Jerusalem, unscarred by foreign occupation and urban development. As the first Arab woman to travel to Paris in the 1920s…
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1916 – 2017 Born in 1916 in Ain el Mreisseh, Beirut, Lebanon, Choucair came from a family of doctors, lawyers, engineers and historians. Her father, Salim Rawda (1872-1917) was an expatriate in Australia trading herbs and writing manuscripts on their medicinal values. When he returned to Lebanon in 1910, he met and married Choucair’s mother,…
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(1924 – 2004) A pioneer of visual arts in Tunisia, as well as an academic and a women’s rights activist. She is remembered for establishing modern tapestry in her country, as well as for her contributions in the fields of design, painting, ceramics, upholstery, and decorative arts, employing various materials such as stamps, ceramics, stained…
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(1912–1994) A self-taught Moroccan artist who began painting in her later years, and whose work has been exhibited and sold at galleries in Africa and Europe. Radia Bent Lhoucine (also spelled Radia Bent El Houssein) was born in the region of Marrakech in Douar Oulad Youssef (in the province of Kalaât Sraghna) and died in…
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Naziha Salim(1927 – 2008) An Iraqi artist, educator and author, described by the country’s president, Jalal Talabani, as “the first Iraqi woman who anchored the pillars of Iraqi contemporary art”. Not a great deal of scholarly attention has been given to the cultural and artistic lives of female artists. In the case of Naziha Salim,…
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(1925 – 2004) Born in 1925 as the middle child in a family of seven sisters and two brothers, Menhat Allah Helmy stood out among her siblings through her artistic talent. She graduated with distinction from Cairo’s High Institute of Pedagogic Studies for Art in 1949 and earned her a government scholarship three years later—just…
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(1889 – 1973) The late Marie Chiha Hadad was born in 1889 in Beirut, Lebanon to a prominent family of bankers. She completed her education in 1908 at the exclusive French school ‘l’Ecole Des Dames De Nazareth,’ where she studied the work of the French masters in both literature and arts. Marie Chiha was married…
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Nevine Farghaly is an Egyptian artist. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Faculty of Applied Arts (1997) as well as both a master’s degree (2001) and a PhD (2007) from Helwan University where she is currently a professor. Farghaly produces work on various scales, small works that include tens of intricate pieces are not…
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(1973 – 2018) An Iranian contemporary multidisciplinary visual artist whose work focused on women’s issues, gender representation, and the beauty industry.She is best known for depiction of rebellious Iranian women in her Girls in Cars and Miss Hybrid series of photographs. Aliabadi was born in Tehran, Iran in 1973 to Maymanat and Iraj Aliabadi. Her…
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(1930 – 2010) An Egyptian artist and art professor specializing in printed design. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the Faculty of Fine Arts Cairo in 1954 and her Master of Fine Arts in graphic printing 1957 from the University of Southern California. Beginning in 1958, Aleem taught printmaking at the Faculty of Fine…
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(1908 – 1977) Nakhla, a pioneering Egyptian artist, faced gender-based barriers early in her education but persevered to make significant contributions to the art world. Born at a time when attending the Egyptian School of Fine Arts was restricted for her gender, she instead attended an all-girls school operated by nuns and taught in French.…
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( 1927 – 2020)A Tunisian designer and decorator. Menchari was born in Tunis in 1927. Her father was a lawyer and her mother, Habiba Menchari, was known for her lectures on female empowerment. As a teenager, she met Jean and Violet Henson, who introduced Menchari to horticulture and helped her meet artists such as Man…
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(1982 – 2016) Leila Alaoui, a French–Moroccan photographer and video artist, dedicated her career to shedding light on social injustices and advocating for cultural identity, diversity, migration, and displacement. Born in Paris to a Moroccan father and French mother, Alaoui spent her formative years in Marrakesh, Morocco. The plight of migrants undertaking perilous journeys left…
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(1940 – 2022) Laila Shawa was born on 4 April 1940 in Gaza, Mandatory Palestine, eight years prior to the 1948 Nakba and the founding of the State of Israel. Shawa was well educated; she attended boarding school at the Leonardo da Vinci Art Institute in Cairo from 1957 to 1958, then went to the…
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( 1893 – 1940) Karimeh Abbud was born in Bethlehem. Her father Said Abbud, was working as a teacher in Bethlehem, after the family had moved from Khiam, in South of Lebanon to Palestine. At the turn of the century, he became pastor of the Lutheran church for the following five decades. Karimeh was the…