Samir Rafi (1926-2004) - Small is Beautiful

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THE CAIRO YEARS

By Fatenn Mostafa Kanafani

Samir Rafi’s early life consists of a chain of chance encounters that would ulti mately shape his career as an artist. Later when he took matters in his own hands, the trajectory of his life took different forms, depending among other things, on national and regional context, colonial politics, personal ambitions, and commercial interests. Born in the Sakkakini district in Cairo on 15 August 1926, Samir Rafi was a painter, sculptor, arts educator and author. An ambitious individualist from the beginning, Rafi was destined to an impressive career in his homeland. A prodigious trendsetter who broke boundar ies with visual innovations that linked Egyptian imagery with the human subconscious, he began his career in Egypt in the midst of World War II producing works depicting ordinary daily life, that were far ahead of his time. Driven by the hope to achieve inter national recognition, Rafi however left Egypt at the peak of his career in June 1954. He remained abroad until his death in 2004, never returning, albeit for one month during the summer of 1964. Initially sent on a government scholarship to pursue doctorate studies in art history at the Sorbonne University in Paris, the then twenty-eight-year-old ambitious artist gambled when he decided to follow his dream of fame, and remained in the French capital, leaving all behind and somehow getting lost along the way. The sequence of events thereafter is a long and painful tale between Paris (1954-1964) and Alger (1964-1969), and back (1969-2004).

And yet despite his short productive period in Egypt, Samir Rafi created an Egyptian spirit that surpassed the contingencies of race and geography to reach the human absolute. By challenging long-held traditional views about what art should be, he demonstrated a very early independence and initiated an aesthetic style far removed from the academic classicism prevailing amongst majority of the native artists and upheld by the elite. In the process, Rafi worked prolifically to create what he dubbed in 1945 an ‘International Egyptian Surrealism Movement.’ 1 Built around the concept of ‘the secrets of modern life’, 2 his non-conformist paintings responded to the call of ‘contem poraneity’ and were a rite of passage as he took the dramatic step to egyptianize to the core the international language of surrealism. This explains why The Cairo Years between 1941 and 1954 are generally considered the highpoint of his career, and cemented Rafi as

Samir Gharib, al-Hijraal-Mostahila:MinDarbal-LabbanailaParis [The Impossible Migration: From Darb al-Labbana to Paris], (Cairo: Maktabit al-‘Osra, 1997), p. 47.

2 Exh. cat. L’artcontemporain Lyçée français du Caire, 1946, p. 14.

one of Egypt’s most important revelations when he co-founded the Contemporary Art Group in 1946, an artist-collective that came to be seen as the most inventive art move ment in twentieth century Egypt.

Covering the period from 1941, when he was still a high school student in Cairo, until 1954, the year he left to Paris, the exhibition presents works that have not been exhibited in over sixty years, with an accompanying catalogue that aims to bring us as close as possible to the truth. Dedicated to the most important formative period of Rafi’s career, it narrates the story of Egypt through the eyes of one of its most innovative sons, and opens up a dialogue on how Samir Rafi, more than any other artist of his generation, influenced movements, artist collectives and Egyptian aesthetics from then onward.

Inspired by Life, I Paint You.

From his school time, Samir Rafi envisioned a movement that approached art, technically and conceptually, in different ways. He began to take drawing lessons at school, and was recognized as a promising talented artist who had found his own voice. This in turn helped attract the attention of influential mentors keen on nurturing Rafi’s talent during his formative years. In 1941, Rafi met the drawing teachers and influential arts educators, Youssef al-Afifi and Shafik Rizk. Through the Etihad Asatizit al-Rassim [Teachers’ Drawing Association], al-Afifi and Rizk took under their wings talented high school students from various schools and organized annual collective exhibitions. Rafi took part for the first time in the exhibition held at the Farouk I High School in 1941, and a second time, in the exhibition held in the premises of the Teachers’ Association in November 1943. Amongst the high school exhibitors were also Abdel Hadi al-Gazzar (1925-66) and Hamed Nada (1924-90), both from the Helmiyya Secondary School, and their elder peers, Saad al-Khadem (1913-87) and Rateb Seddik (1917-94), from al-Sayyid ia Secondary School.

When his parents succeeded in transferring him from the ‘ordinary’ Taher Pri mary School to the ‘prestigious’ Farouk I Secondary High School in 1942, Rafi met the drawing teacher and future ‘mentor’, Hussein Youssef Amin (1904-84). A history-making and controversial relationship between student and teacher developed. At the Egyptian School of Fine Arts between 1943 and 1948, Rafi became the protégé of the painter Hus sein Amin Bicar (1913-2002), and gained the support of Maurice Louis Savin (1894-1973), a French master in the art of high-warp tapestry posted in Cairo in 1948. Eventually, Rafi’s graduation project, which consisted of a surrealist tapestry, received the highest honors placing him the first of his graduating class, and introduced surrealism as a movement in the confines of the conservative institution.

In addition to attracting the support of arts educators, Rafi captured the at tention of the public. In 1943, the Ministry of Public Instruction acquired one of Rafi’s paintings [Shells/al-Qawaqyi’e , 1942], and bestowed upon him a gold medal as the best nation-wide high school drawing student.

During the same year, the seventeen-year-old had his first solo exhibition. Held at the Qatan Library, the exhibition was organized with the help of Youssef al-Afifi and the then-twenty-four-year-old surrealist painter Fouad Kamel (1919-73). A year later, a second individual show took place at the Smith Bookstore, whose director was the Marx ist activist and writer Lotfallah Soliman (1919-95). The exhibition was organized with the help of the surrealist painters and brothers Kamel and Hassan el-Telmisany, and paved the way for Rafi’s participation in the fourth and fifth group exhibitions of the surrealist collective al-Fann wa-l-Hurriya or the Art and Liberty Group, which took place at the Lyçée Français du Caire in May 1944 and 1945.

Following the dismantling of the Art and Liberty Group by Egyptian-British au thorities in 1946, Rafi co-founded the transformative artist-collective Jama’at al-fann al-mo’assir [Contemporary Art Group]. By 1954, the year of his exit from Egypt, Rafi had represented Egypt in the prestigious Venice Biennale in 1952 and 1954, where a room was exclusively dedicated to his works during the latter edition. In 1953, he joined a number of Egyptian artists at the Sao Paulo Biennale, to the acclaim of the press and the arts community. This wide support system from arts educators, education ministry, and avant-garde artists were able to recognize Samir Rafi’s precocious talent, but also his genius mind.

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The Rafi’ism School of Art

Dali

In majority of the works produced during TheCairoYears , Samir Rafi confronted the miseries of everyday life and human anxieties in figurative renderings and bold col ors to develop a powerful mode of social criticism. His unique vision emerged between 1941 and 1942 with two works of confounding originality: Shells (1941) and Chevaux aux épines (1942). Exhibited at the high school students’ Collective Exhibition organized by Etihad Asatizit al-Rassim [Teachers’ Drawing Association] in 1941 and acquired by the Ministry of Public Instruction in 1943, Shells explores the concept of the beginning of mankind and depicts idle shells à la nature morte. The second painting depicts two hors es with thorns on their back that stand nonchalantly drinking water. Bluish grey, surreal, painful, and very local, it was a parody of a less frequently depicted theme, donkeys be ing the more familiar, and was probably greeted with a sense of shock back when it was exhibited in Cairo. Salvador Dali rated it as Rafi’s best work, 3 but since ‘any painting not signed Dali or Picasso is not painting,’ then, it too, was not considered painting. This ear ly period climaxed into Tree Man (al-Rajilal-Shajara , 1943) and Time (al-Zaman , 1946-7), two works that represent the peak of Rafi’s formative stage. Exhibited during the second high school students’ exhibition by Youssef al-Afifi in 1943 and again in the Independent Art exhibition by Art and Liberty in 1944, Tree Man depicts four figures seated in what appears to be a forest. On the right, the main character is a man whose right foot and left arm form a tree. According to Rafi, the work is ‘one of the most important beginnings of Surrealism in Egypt.’ 4

By 1945, Rafi had sealed the movement of “Rafi’sm” as a recognizable visual style, as demonstrated by his masterpiece 5 Time . Painted while he was still a student at the Fine Arts School, it was Rafi’s all-encompassing attempt at Egyptianizing surrealism as it exemplified the sensibilities and techniques of a mixture of local and universal ele ments, and offered ‘a deep and romantic philosophical view.’ Inspired by the 4500-yearold limestone mythical Great Sphinx of Guiza and a photograph of an older Egyptian fellaha, it blended the glorious past, the symbolism of folklore, and the surrealism of the subconscious to depict the plight of ordinary people patiently waiting for a better future:

May

Throughout this period, Rafi used the concept of the ‘mechanics of creation’, a term Angelo di Riz, a self-taught Italian-born exiled artist and a member of the Art and Liberty group, described as one that necessitates the production of sketches and drawings before an artist is able to master an idea on canvas. This explains why thousands of drawings on different materials and with different media exist depicting identical ideas, with various compositions and mathematical calculations. Even though arts educator Habib Gorgi and mentor-painter Hussein Bicar warned Rafi of the danger of using geometric calculations since it could suffocate spontaneous and spiritual expression, Rafi maintained this step to balance his compositions and fill in the voids. He began to explore oil as media during the summer vacation of 1941, and based on Angelo di Riz’ advice, rented a studio from the Cairo-resident Orientalist French painter Pierre Beppi-Martin at the Citadel in Darb al-Labbana in 1942 to exper iment with making his own oil and master the use of colors. Ever since, all the oil paintings from 1943 to 1954 were produced with self-made oil colors. 8 In addition to oil, Samir Rafi relentlessly explored the use of different techniques and materials (brush, cotton, knife, wood, paper, left-over materials, water color, charcoal etc..), and used to borrow art books from the Marxist activist Lotfallah Soliman’s bookstore to open his horizon and get acquainted with European masters.

Samir Rafi proceeded in creating a pioneering art movement capitalizing on the revolutionary thinking and avant-garde European art movements he got acquainted to during his involvement with the Egyptian surrealists and the different artists he met at the Maison des artistes in Darb al-Labbana. Following the demise of Art and Liberty, Rafi seems to have accepted that the public resented the surrealists as elitist artists and perceived them as a threat to the nation, since they promoted a difficult-to-grasp and morally suspicious imported movement. In that context, Rafi was instrumental as he insisted on promoting an ideology centered around local aesthetics and influences, in order to achieve his vision for an international Egyptian surrealist school of art.

According to Rafi, the act of Egyptianizing surrealism was also an act of resis tance in the sense that it meant a head-on confrontation between academic art (symbol izing Occupation and status-quo) and the new contemporary Egyptian art he pioneered (symbolizing liberation in all meanings). 9 Rafi produced the most extraordinary art based on a deep understanding of the localities (past and present) and the psychology of or dinary people, and sought to address the present conditions and struggles of the nation. As such, he brought to light the traditionalism particular to the underprivileged class as well as the superstition that transforms into magic rituals many of the tragic facets of their private life, whence the folk, somber, cruel, theatrical, wistful and somehow fore closed character of his paintings. Since such middle-class environment represented his family roots, it enabled him to give a genuine and pure Egyptian sense to make heard the anonymous voices so far either ignored or misrepresented. For the first time, a pressing authentic Egypt affirmed itself and pushed forward towards a social revolution that the ordinary people could grasp.

Samir Rafi in Darb al-Labbana surrounded by his sculptures, mid1940s.

Absolute Humanism

In search of the unknown and the depth of human feelings, Rafi set out to draw a different Egypt: neither the European Orientalist stereotype depicting lazy people or lavish scenery in a souk or bath, nor the classic post-card imitation of reality that many first-generation native artists fell prey to, and no longer the European-influenced sur realist language spoken by his elder-partners, the Egyptian surrealists of the Art and Liberty Group. Rather, it revealed a metaphysical blend of overlapping movements and styles to depict the Egyptian man to which Rafi added ‘a universal soul.’10 His early inter pretation of Egyptian ordinary life struggled and triumphed in finding different visions, techniques, and materials to express the huge oppressions, upheavals, and hard-won freedoms that have epitomized Egypt’s sprawl. By reconciling different if not opposite aesthetic elements from various ‘ism’ schools of modern and ancient art, Rafi eventually created a singular painting school that the French painter and influential teacher An dré Lhote (1885-1962) defined as ‘Totalisme,’ 11 or [Wholeness]. The ‘whole’ appears like “still” narratives with a mordant, or rather poignant wit, usually depicted in geometric and exaggeratedly executed brushstrokes.

Playing with different forms, media and sizes, Rafi used pure colors interspersed with the heavy atmosphere and pulsing rhythms of folklore, legends, and symbols, to tell the pain of colonialism, poverty, cholera epidemic, patriarchy, love and freedom (or lack of). Working in layers of ideas, he commented on the emotional resonances of ordinary life in representations that range from a surrealism that evicts the inner realities stored in his subjects (humans or animals) to the harsh and melancholic figurative depictions of human misery, and back again, in search of a social and collective remedy. His regular visits to the Zoo in Cairo enabled him to observe the flora and fauna of Egypt and other worlds, and help explain his fascination and recurring use of a variety of canine mammals and plant-like organisms. Such animals and others (e.g. wolves, jackals, foxes, coyotes, birds, cats, horses, bulls, scorpions and fish) began to play a significant role in the imag inary world of Samir Rafi. They are either entwined in the bodies of his subjects, or are their (sole) companion. What significance and meanings they carry offers a large space for interpretation. Similar to ancient Egyptian artists who depicted sacred canines-a mythical creature combining features of jackals, dogs and foxes,

Samir Rafi intentionally depicted an ambiguous animal whose specific identi ty is often uncertain. For example, the repeated use of what resembles a fox or a wolf around women may be symbolizing unpredictable change and a heightened sense of awareness. Known as cunning and devious animals, they may be viewed as the single best partner or symbol to guide women down a destined path.

Heralded as a pessimist and by then appointed professor of Décor at the Egyp tian School of Fine Arts after he earnt a two-year teaching diploma in 1950, Rafi was at one point denied by Taha Hussein, the-then Minister of Public Instruction, to take part in a traveling exhibition in 1952 under the pretext that Rafi’s paintings, according to Rafi’s personal documents, gave ‘a bad image of the Egyptian society. They are unexhibitable abroad.’

12 Rafi responded that there were different ways of resisting, including the depic tion of courage vis-à-vis ‘the enemy’: be it time, the British colonialists, injustice, betrayal or social ostracism/ exclusion. In his last two exhibitions in 1953, a year after the Military Coup and before his departure to France, Samir Rafi presented over fifty paintings in each, with many politically-charged works tackling important historical subjects. In one example, the 1906 atrocious Denshawy Incident is depicted in Dinshawy’s Dove [Hama mitDinshawy] through a pigeon struggling to rise from beneath dead bodies of innocent Egyptians in protest against the unfair verdict and their atrocious execution by hanging by the British. In another example, Rafi depicts a group of courageous Egyptians standing in a circle, defiant though in fear, surrounded by British soldiers ready to execute them with their guns, to symbolize resistance against imperialism.

By the time he married the painter Etimad Ali Abdel Rahman, and later had two chil dren, Saher and Sahar, Rafi’s well-known representations of family life [e.g. EgyptianFamily , 1949] and motherhood include hybrid individuals immobilized and numb by their daily trou bles and fearful of their destiny. Reviewing a group exhibition in which Rafi took part, a jour nalist concluded: ‘[The exhibiting artists] strive to pave a path to reach the same destination. Whereas majority depicts an identical route, there are however very few others who carve a different path. Convinced that as long as they are moving towards the same destination, then there is no objection. This is Samir Rafi. He is Egyptian, Italian, French, Ugandan…all national ities united, and he calls this [different path]: Absolute Humanism [‘InsaniyyaShamla].’ 13

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A TALE OF HOPE OR THE TRAGEDY OF HOPE

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Samir Rafi’s Cairo Years invites a deeper examination into the “Rafi’sm” school of art, thereby recognizing Rafi as the pioneer he truly was. As we take a closer look at the works produced between 1941 and 1954 presented in this exhibition for the first time in over six decades, we come to understand how Rafi’s pioneering work advanced, if not master minded Egyptian Surrealism, and influenced various movements and artists thereafter, mak ing Rafi an essential part of the re-envisioning of Arab art history.

Intriguing, singular, Samir Rafi was a highly individual artist, who seems to have nev er admitted that the grass was not greener after all on the other side. Driven by his blind am bitions to impact the world, he sacrificed homeland, wife, children, friends, and colleagues, when he decided to migrate and spent the last decades of his life, in seclusion in Paris. Only Sami (1931-2019), his younger brother and the architect behind the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, remained his lifetime pen friend and confidant. Distant from the region for over half a century, Rafi paid a hefty price as he did not receive the attention bestowed upon his more famous “brethren” of the Contemporary Art Group, Abdel Hadi el-Gazzar and Hamed Nada in particular as they continue to be the hottest subjects for museum exhibits and auction sales. By the time of his death, Rafi belonged neither in Egypt nor in France, and his ability (or rather inability) to overcome obstacles became the subject of his work which explains the more somber, enigmatic, highly sexual and darker side. Neither celebrated in the Arab world, nor recognized as he had expected in Europe, his legacy began to be revived when all his belongings, scattered in his two-bed room apartment in Paris, were returned to Cairo by the Ministry of Culture following his death in 2004. Only then did Rafi begin to “taste” the ap preciation he truly deserves in his homeland, as well as in the so-coveted Western world, and become the subject of many controversies. His legacy, persona and oeuvre are now being scrutinized. Many stories are told, triggered by family feud, unpublished letters that are being discovered in which he attacked key players and revealed a different history to the events, as well as press articles, to which he responded, 14 or others left unanswered since they were published 15 after his death.

Gharieb, al-Hijraal-Mostahila

Lying somewhere between a tale of hope and the tragedy of hope, Samir Rafi’s life and work were also the subject of three Arabic-language books. The title of Samir Gharieb’s book is a resonating description. Titled TheImpossibleMigration:FromDarbal-Labbanato Paris(Cairo: 1999), Gharieb’s book is primarily based on letters by Samir Rafi written between 1986-88 to his brother Sami, and on interviews the author held with Rafi in Paris in 1997. Like wise, the two books by Abdelrazek Okasha, published in 2007 and 2012, are based on inter views the author held with Samir Rafi in Paris. Interviewed at a time when Rafi was past his seventies, some of the accounts certainly lack in objectivity and demonstrate a rather bitter persona who views himself as a constant victim, and judges the other artists as imitators to his unique style. This is further demonstrated in handwritten letters dated August to Novem ber 2000 acquired by ArtTalks from the archive of the late art critic Mokhtar al-Attar. By then, many of the key protagonists, who participated in or shaped Rafi’s life one way or another, had passed away and could no longer respond to the accusations or confirm the veracity of Rafi’s account of events. This forces us to take the stories published with a grain of salt since many are one-sided. To add to the complexity, Rafi’s exceptionally prolific production, divid ed in two periods (Egypt until 1954 and post-Egypt), is scattered around the world and ex ceeds thousands of paintings using different media, (lost) objects and sculptures, drawings, collage, sketchbooks and tapestries. Despite the dispersion of his oeuvre and the immense confusion in historical facts, this exhibition is both a tribute to Rafi’s Cairo Years, and an at tempt to divulge some truth. This, until we complete the first English-language monograph dedicated to the artist as we aim to call for a deeper examination into folk surrealism to seal Rafi into the historical art canon. In one of the letters Rafi addressed to al-Attar, Rafi agreed to publish his biography as he wanted ‘to correct history’ and remedy the historical oblivion of his legacy. In the letter, he admitted that ‘the whole responsibility falls upon [himself], as [he] had chosen silence.’ Samir Rafi’s Cairo Years aims to break that silence.

Right: Samir Rafi’s unpublished, handwritten autobiography.

Left: Letter by Samir Rafi addressed to late art critic, Mokhtar al-Attar, dated 2000. ArtTalks Archive.

Cover of the catalogue published on the oc casion of the exhibition held by the Ministry of Culture in 2005, following the repatriation of Samir Rafi’s paintings from Paris.

Mixed media on paper | 50 x 32 cm

Signed and Dated S.RAFI 58

Mixed media on paper | 50 x 32 cm Signed and Dated S.RAFI

Oil on wood | 39 x 28 cm Signed and Dated S.RAFI

Oil on wood | 33 x 24 cm Signed and Dated S.RAFI

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Mixed media on paper | 36 x 43 cm

Signed and dated 26-7-86

Oil on paper | 50 x 44 cm

Dated 12-10-91

Oil on wood | 19 x 30 cm

Oil on wood | 12 x 50 cm

Signed and dated 10-11-76

Mixed media on paper | 21 x 15 cm Dated 20-12-80

Mixed media on paper | 21 x 16 cm Dated 10-12-80

Mixed media on paper | 16 x 19 cm | Dated 3-12-80

Mixed media on paper

13 x 16 cm

Dated 5-12-80

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17 x 20 cm

Dated 16-12-80

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15 x 20 cm

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16 x 20 cm

Dated 12-80

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15 x 21 cm

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Front

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Back

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13 x 20 cm

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Mixed media on paper

11 x 16 cm

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Pen on paper | 30 x 21 cm

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Pen on paper | 28 x 20 cm Dated 20-1-80

Pencil on paper 20 x 28 cm

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Pen on paper | 21 x 13 cm

Dated 10-5-79

Pen on paper 25 x 34 cm

Dated 22-8-81

Pen on paper | 21 x 13 cm

Dated 10-5-79

Pen on paper 20 x 30 cm

Dated 22-8-81

Charcoal

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29 x 20 cm | Signed and dated

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Dated 2-2-88

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30

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Feutre on paper

Feutre on paper

Lavisiteduprisonnier,#8, Alger,Juin64

Pen on paper | 27 x 21 cm

Lavisiteduprisonnier,#2, Alger,Juin64

Pen on paper | 27 x 21 cm

Lavisiteduprisonnier,#1, Alger,Juin64

Pen on paper | 27 x 21 cm

Lavisiteduprisonnier,#6, Alger,Juin64

Pen on paper | 27 x 21 cm

Feutre on paper | 34 x 24 cm

Signed and dated S.R 60

Pen on paper | 30 x 20 cm

Signed and dated S.R 64

Pen on paper | 30 x 20 cm Dated 64

Pen on paper | 27 x 21 cm

Signed and dated S.R 71

Pen on paper 20 x 30 cm

Signed and dated S.R 64

La belle et la bête

Pen on paper

20 x 30 cm

Dated 64

LesPyramidesauclairdelune

Pencil on paper | 27 x 21 cm

Signed S.R

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Dated 59

BIOGRAPHY

1926 Born in Cairo.

1931-35 Studies at al-Azhar.

1941 Collective Student exhibition at Etihad‘Asatzaal-Rassimorganized by Shafik Rizk/al-Afifi.

1942 Farouk I Secondary School, Cairo.

1942-43 Collective student exhibition at Etihad‘Asatzaal-Rassimorganized by Shafik Rizk/ Youssef al-Afifi.

1943-47 Rents studio at the Citadel, Darb al-Labbana from Pierre Beppi Martin.

1943 First Solo Exhibition, Qattan Bookstore (Youssef al-Afifi).

1943 First acquisition of Rafi painting [Shells] by the Egyptian Ministry of Public Instruction.

1943 Awarded Gold Medal by Ministry of Public Instruction. Best drawing student nationwide.

1943 Graduates high school diploma. Student, Faculty of Fine Arts.

1943 Collective Student exhibition at Etihad‘Asatzaal-Rassimby Youssef a-Afifi and S. Rizk.

1944 Second Solo Exhibition, Smith Bookstore.

1944 Third solo “60 Dessins de Samir Rafi 1938-44” at Lycee Francais du Caire, organized by Angelo di Riz.

1945 Paints in Darb-al-Labbana with Art and Liberty members and Pierre Beppi-Martin.

1945 Exhibits at V Independent Art show, Art and Liberty, Lycée Français du Caire.

1946 Co-founder, Contemporary Art Group (CAG) with Hussein Youssef Amin.

1946 First CAG Exhibition, Lycée Français du Caire (May).

1947 Rents studio at Citadel, Darb al-Labbana from Ramsès Younan.

1947 Honorary Prize of Young Painting.

1947 Participates in International Exhibition, Cairo.

1948 Graduates from Egyptian School of Fine Arts. Highest Honors. First of graduating class.

1948 Second CAG Exhibition, Dar Khidmit al-Shabab, Soliman Pasha str., Cairo (May)

1948-50 Diploma, Higher Institute of Pedagogic Art Studies at Ain Shams University.

1949 Participates in Exhibition France-Egypte, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.

1949 Meets Ahmed Ben Bella, Algerian activist studying in Cairo.

1949 Third CAG Exhibition at YMCA.

1950 Drawing Teacher, Tanta Secondary School / Khalifa al-Ma’mun School.

1951-53 Assistant Professor, Funun al-Zaghrafiya, Faculty of Fine Arts, Cairo.

1950 Produces 120 gravures to illustrate a state-published book [Taisir al-Nah].

1951 Third Solo Exhibition, Samir Rafi, by CAG, Bureau des Avocats, Cairo (5-12 April).

1952 Represents Egypt at the 26th Venice Biennale with other artists.

1953-54 Professor, Faculty of Fine Arts, Cairo.

1953 Fourth Solo Exhibition by CAG, Museum of Modern Art, Cairo (April).

1954 Participates in the 27th Venice Biennale. Travels to Rome (June and July).

1954 Travels to Paris (July) on Government Scholarship. Settles with wife.

1954 Exhibition, Contemporary Art Group (9 artists), André Maurice Gallery, Paris (Aug.)

1955-58 Student, History of Modern Art and Museology at École du Louvre, Paris.

1955 PhD Student, Purism at Sorbonne, Paris.

1956 Travels to Rome (meets Ibrahim Massouda who emigrated to Italy) (2 months). Returns to Paris.

1956 Expo in Brussels.

1957 Registration, Doctorate Studies under Prof. André Chastel, Sorbonne University.

1957 Meets André Lhote.

1958 Meets Picasso.

1959 Meets Le Corbusier.

1961 Participates in IX Salon d’Automne, Graduates of Fine Arts School, Corniche el-Nile

1964 Thesis approved by Prof. Chastel.

1964 Moves to Alger, Algeria (June).

1964 Visits Cairo for one month. Interrogated by Cairo Police.

1964-68 Appointed Technical Advisor Fine Arts to Ministry of National Education, Alger.

1964-65 Jailed in Algeria, accused of spying for Gamal Abdel Nasser.

1965 Expected to present Doctorate Thesis in June.

1968-69

Appointed Professor, History of Modern Art, Faculty of Letters in Alger.

1968 Exhibition, Centre Culturel Français in Alger. (March / 62 works).

1969 Leaves or is ejected from Algeria. Returns to Paris, France (July).

1970 Solo ‘Samir Rafi 1945-1969,’ Lovicine for Arts & Culture, Mairie de Lovicine, France.

1972 Undergoes first operation in Paris (June).

1972-76 Home-bound following 3 other surgeries in Paris.

1987 Heart surgery in Paris.

1987

Retrospective Art and Liberty Group, curated by Samir Gharib, Egyptian Center for International Culture, Zamalek (Nov-Dec.).

1987 Retrospective Samir Rafi, curated by Sami Rafi, Akhnatoun Gallery (Dec.)

1991 Ripped off by Machoïr-Bailly Auction House, Versailles, France (125 paintings)

2004 Death in Paris.

2005 Exhibition ‘Samir Rafi: Masterpieces on Show for the first time in 50 Years’, held by Ministry of Culture at the Egyptian Museum of Modern Art, following repatriation from Paris.

ARTICLES BY SAMIR RAFI

1947 “al-Mazahib al-Haditha fi al-Fann,” JournalFineArtsSchool

1953 “al-Fann layssa Miraa,” [Art is not a Mirror], al-Balagh 31 May

1953 “Maarakit al-Fann,” al-Balagh 17 June

1968-69 “Mozakirat Fannan Misry fi Paris,’ al-Hilal(total of 7 articles)

ARTICLES ABOUT SAMIR RAFI

1948 Etienne Miriel, “Le Groupe d’Art Contemporain,” LaBourseÉgyptienne 18 May.

1948 Hussein Youssef Amin, “Missaliyat al-Fann al-Mo’athir,” al-Rissala no. 480, 9 March

1948 Hussein Youssef Amin, “Missaliyat al-Fann al-Mo’athir,” Doniaal-Fann no. 87, 25 May

1951 Author unknown, “Bi’tha ila Paris,” Al-Jil 6 October 1952

BOOKS

1951 SamirRafietsonoeuvre,Comte d’Arschot, Ed. el-Riad, Le Caire.

1953 LeMessagedeSamirRafi, Aimé Azar, Ed. La Patrie, Le Caire.

SAMIR