Modernism in the Middle East and Arab World
Exploring modernity and its intellectual trends in the Middle East is a very fitting endeavour, as ‘Middle East’ itself is a ‘modern’ term which has…
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Shelem Yankev Abramovitsh 1835–1917
Above, Shelem Yankev Abramovitsh (1835–1917), commonly known by his literary persona Mendele Moykher-Sforim (Mendele the Book Peddler), is considered to be the founding father of…
Raqs-e melli
Iranian-Armenians Madame Cornelli, Madame Yelena Avakian, and Sarkis Djanbazian, all of whom had learned ballet in Russia or Europe, came to Iran where they opened…
Latiff, Jaafar (1937--)
Jaafar Latiff, born in Singapore, established his reputation as an abstract artist in the 1960s. He was self-taught; however, his talent saw him easily find…
Ben Abdallah, Jellal (1921--)
Jellal Ben Abdallah is a Tunisian artist and illustrator based in Sidi Bou Saïd. He studied at the Lycée Carnot in Tunis. His early drawings…
Lahham, Rafiq (1932--)
Born in Damascus in 1932, Rafiq Lahham went on to become a pioneer in Jordan’s modern art movement. His body of work is characterized by…
Jaafari, Nazem al- (1918--)
Al-Jaafari was one of the first painters in Syria to achieve recognition as a professional artist. Pursuing a semi-romantic realist style for the whole of…
Nseir, Leila (1941--)
Leila Nseir was one of the first women artists in Syria to achieve institutional recognition during the national art movement. In 1961 she traveled to…
Iranian New Wave
The Iranian New Wave began when a group of young Iranian directors—following developments in the Iranian cultural arena with origins in the political and social…
Arlen, Michael (1895–1956)
Michael Arlen, although now largely forgotten, was one of the most successful novelists of the 1920s. Born Dikran Kouyoumdjian in Ruse, Bulgaria, to Armenian parents,…
Alterman, Nathan (1910–1970)
Born in Warsaw, Poland, Nathan Alterman emigrated to Palestine in 1925 at the age of fifteen. One of the most prominent Hebrew poets of his…
Ayad, Ragheb (1892–1982)
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…
Enani, Salah (1955–)
Salah Enani is best known for his painted compositions, which depict playfully rendered figures that have exaggerated caricatured features. His works often present recognizable Egyptian…
Henein, Georges (1914–1973)
The son of an Egyptian diplomat and Italian-Egyptian mother, surrealist writer Georges Henein spent his childhood between Cairo, Madrid, Rome, and Paris. It was in…
Molodowsky, Kadya (1894–1975)
Known as ‘the first lady of Yiddish literature,’ Kadya Molodowsky published continuously between 1927 and 1974. Molodowsky earned renown as a prolific poet, prose writer,…
Fogel, David (1891–1944)
David Fogel was born in 1891 in the town of Satanov in Podolia. In 1912 he moved to Vienna where he stayed until 1925. During…
Bandung School
The Bandung School refers to one of the streams of modern art in post-revolutionary Indonesia. It is associated primarily with the art school in what…
Hikmet, Nâzım (1902–1963)
Nâzım Hikmet (Ran) (b.January 15, 1902, Thessaloniki–d.June 3, 1963, Moscow) was a Turkish poet, playwright, novelist, and screenwriter who spent nearly fifteen years of his…
Rabikovitch, Dalia (1936–2005)
Born in Ramat Gan, Israel, Dalia Rabikovitch was six years old when her father died in a car accident. Her family moved to kibbutz Geva,…
Nabaa, Nazir (1938--)
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…
Shlonsky, Abraham (1900–1973)
Abraham Shlonsky can be regarded as the main architect of modern Hebrew poetry. He was born in 1900 to a socialist revolutionary mother and a…
Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts
The Royal Society of Fine Arts, a private, non-profit, non-governmental organization with the goal of promoting the visual arts in Jordan and the region, established…
Heifetz-Tussman, Malka (1893–1987)
Malka Heifetz-Tussman was a twentieth-century American Yiddish poet. She was born in 1896 in the region of Volyn in Ukraine (then part of the Russian…
Yehoshua, A. B.
A leading Israeli writer and cultural figure since the 1960s, Avraham B. Yehoshua’s work was recognized, even when he was a young man, as representing…
Kamel, Youssef (1891–1971)
Youssef Kamel is an Egyptian painter renowned for his impressionist landscapes of the countryside and views of medieval Cairo. As one of the leading figures…