(1926 - 2004)
Samir Rafi was born in Cairo in 1926. He was the student of the pioneer late artist Hussein Youssef Amin who organized Rafi’s first exhibition in 1943 at the Qattan Library in Cairo. He studied at the decorative art department of the Faculty of Fine Arts since 1948 and soon became a member of the “Art and Liberty” group which was founded by George Henin, who drew the new member’s attention to surrealism. Rafi quickly gained a strong foothold in the art community in Egypt throughout the 1940s and 1950s. In addition to painting, he experimented with great verve in printmaking, decorative art and fold art but he also acted as a philosopher and a writer. During the fifties, Rafi was an apprentice to the renowned French sculptor and painter, Andre Lhote (1885 – 1962) and he frequented artists such as Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Le Corbusier, Fernand Leger and Jean Dubeffet. Samir Rafi’s works have been exhibited internationally and are featured in many collections. The artist passed away in 2003.