RAGHEB AYAD 1892 – 1982
Ragheb Ayad was born in Cairo on the 10th of March 1892 and
inscribed himself in the School of Fine Arts since its opening in
1908. After graduation he taught art in the high Coptic school and
made several trips on his own to France and Italy to complete his
artistic education. He was the first to obtain a governmental
scholarship to Rome where he stayed for five years studying art in
the Superior Institute of Fine Arts. Since his return to Cairo in
1930, he was assigned as director of the decorative section of the
Faculty of Applied Arts. In 1937, he is named professor at the
Faculty of Fine Arts and director of its free section. He was in
charge of reorganizing the Coptic museum and since 1950 became
head of the Museum of Modern Art where he made a special
section in it for the great sculpture Mahmoud Mokhtar. Since 1924
and for half a century he participated in most of the exhibitions of
the ‘Cairo Salon’ plus organizing 40 solo exhibitions. Ragheb
Ayad is considered one of the pioneers of Egyptian art in the 20th
century alongside Mahmoud Mokhtar, Youssef Kamel, Mohamed
Hassan, Mahmoud Said and Mohamed Naghy. Ragheb Ayad is
the first to get rid of the western influences and to create an
Egyptian art with its own solid identity. For the rest of his life
Ragheb Ayad was dedicated to the popular themes of the Egyptian
life whether it is the cosmopolitan Cairo or the upper Egyptian
villages and the small towns. He visited all these places recording
the pulsating life of the soukes, the moulids, the cafes and the men
and women dancers. Ragheb Ayad remained forever the painter of
this true Egyptian universe. Ragheb Ayad is considered to be the
first expressionistic painter who influenced the second and third
generation of artists. Aside from the popular, Ayad was attracted to
the religious themes where he portrayed the flight of the holly
family in Egypt and the birth of Jesus. Moreover Ayad is known to
be the first Egyptian artist to be influenced by the ancient Egyptian
art and this is quiet relevant in his paintings dealing with the rural
life. In them we see the succession of different aspects of the rural
life being portrayed vertically on horizontal layers instead of the
perspective view. The last period of his artistic life is his portrayal
of the monks in the different monasteries of Egypt as well as
capturing on his canvas the architecture of these monasteries that
are considered to be the purest form of architecture. In 1965 Ayad
was decorated with the highest honor of the Egyptian state and was
also decorated by Italy in appreciation of his art.