Ahmed Shibrain, also known as Ahmad Mohammad Shibrain (, 1931 – 23 March 2017) was a

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

ese

Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

painter and

Dean Dean may refer to: People * Dean (given name) * Dean (surname), a surname of Anglo-Saxon English origin * Dean (South Korean singer), a stage name for singer Kwon Hyuk * Dean Delannoit, a Belgian singer most known by the mononym Dean * Dean Sw ...

of the College of Fine and Applied Art in

Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum is the capital city of Sudan as well as Khartoum State. With an estimated population of 7.1 million people, Greater Khartoum is the largest urban area in Sudan. Khartoum is located at the confluence of the White Nile – flo ...

Life and artistic career

Shibrain was born in 1931 in

Berber, Sudan Berber () is a town in the River Nile state of northern Sudan, north of Atbara, near the junction of the Atbara River and the Nile. Overview The town was the starting-point of the old caravan route across the Nubian Desert to the Red Sea at Su ...

. He studied

Fine Arts In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creativity, creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function ...

at the School of Design at the Khartoum Technical Institute (KTI) and at the Central School of Art and Design in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, England. In 1972, he was Commissioner for Art in the Sudanese Ministry of Youth and later also Secretary of Culture in the Ministry of Culture and Information. In 1975, he became dean of the College of Fine and Applied Art at the

Sudan University of Science and Technology Sudan University of Science and Technology (abbreviated SUST) is one of the largest public universities in Sudan, with ten campuses in Khartoum state. The main campus is located in the so-called Al Mugran area of Khartoum, the confluence of t ...

. Along with

Ibrahim El-Salahi Ibrahim El-Salahi (, born 5 September 1930) is a Sudanese painter, former public servant and diplomat. He is one of the foremost visual artists of the Khartoum School, considered as part of African Modernism and the pan-Arabic Hurufiyya art mov ...

, Shibrain is considered one of the leading representatives of the art movement called ''School of Khartoum'' that combined

Islamic Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

, African and

Western art The art of Europe, also known as Western art, encompasses the history of visual art in Europe. European prehistoric art started as mobile Upper Paleolithic rock and cave painting and petroglyph art and was characteristic of the period bet ...

istic traditions. Both artists are also representatives of the so-called ''hurufiyya''-movement (derived from the Arabic word for ''letter''), as they developed contemporary pictorial representation from traditional

Arabic calligraphy Arabic calligraphy is the artistic practice of penmanship, handwriting and calligraphy based on the Arabic alphabet. It is known in Arabic language, Arabic as ''khatt'' (), derived from the words 'line', 'design', or 'construction'. Kufic is the ...

. Shibrain's large-format calligraphy, in which the words of Islamic texts are interpreted as independent ornaments and images, attracted international attention. Among other collections, his works are represented in the collections of the Barjeel Art Foundation in the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East, at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is a Federal monarchy, federal elective monarchy made up of Emirates of the United Arab E ...

and of the

National Archives National archives are the archives of a country. The concept evolved in various nations at the dawn of modernity based on the impact of nationalism upon bureaucratic processes of paperwork retention. Conceptual development From the Middle Ages i ...

(formerly

Harmon Foundation The Harmon Foundation, established in 1921 by white real-estate developer William E. Harmon (1862–1928), is best known for funding and collecting the work of African-American artists. History The Harmon Foundation was established as "a medium th ...

) in Washington, D.C. Shibrain died in Khartoum on 23 March 2017, aged 82.

Major exhibitions

* 1967: 9. São Paulo Art Biennal * 1974: ''Contemporary African Art''.

National Museum of African Art The National Museum of African Art is the Smithsonian Institution's African art museum, located on the National Mall of the Washington, D.C., United States capital. Its collections include 9,000 works of traditional and contemporary African ar ...

, Washington * 1996: ''The Right to Write''. National Gallery,

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

References

External links

Works by Ahmed Shibrain
at MutualArt {{DEFAULTSORT:Shibrain, Ahmed Mohammad 1931 births 2017 deaths Sudanese painters Sudanese academics People from River Nile State College of Fine and Applied Art (Khartoum) alumni

Life and artistic career

Major exhibitions

References

Further reading

External links