Ahmad Sabri

Ahmed Sabri (أحمد صبري), sometimes Ahmad Sabry (20 April 1889 – 8 March 1955) was an Egyptian painter born in Cairo governance. He was one of the most prominent pioneers of modern portraiture art in Egypt.

Sabri was born in the Megharbeleen neighborhood of Cairo's Darb el-Ahmar district, he suffered from a tormented upbringing, moving house frequently after being orphaned at an early age. In 1910, he joined the Cairo prince Youssef Kamal Fine Arts School and graduated in 1914. He traveled to Paris in 1919 where he joined the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and then the Académie Julian studying in the atelier of François Schommer and under Prof. Paul Albert Laurens, as well as with the painter Emmanuel Fougerat.

Sabri started his first art exhibition in Cairo in 1925.

When he returned to Egypt, he worked as an illustrator with the Entomology Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, then as an artist with the Ministry of Public Works, which sent him on a further scholarship to Paris; there, he exhibited his painting "The Nun" in the Grand Palais in 1929, and was awarded the Prix d'Honneur by the French Arts Society. In 1929, Egyptian artists who had studied in Europe began to be hired as professors in the Higher School of Fine Arts, Ahmed Sabri took up work as a professor in this institution and soon headed the painting department until he retired in 1951. There he fostered the talents of numerous Egyptian masters such as Hussein Bicar, Salah Taher, and Hamed Owais. He became blind a few years before his death in 1955.