Biography

Georges Hanna Sabbagh was born at Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...

 in Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

. He studied art in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, being the first Egyptian at the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

 School. He was a pupil of Paul Sérusier

Paul Sérusier

Paul Sérusier was a French painter who was a pioneer of abstract art and an inspiration for the avant-garde Nabi movement, Synthetism and Cloisonnism.- Education :...

, Félix Vallotton

Félix Vallotton

Félix Edouard Vallotton was a Swiss painter and printmaker associated with Les Nabis. He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut.-Life and work:...

 and the Symbolist painter Maurice Denis

Maurice Denis

Maurice Denis was a French painter and writer, and a member of the Symbolist and Les Nabis movements. His theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art.-Childhood and education:...

. It can be said that he was attached to the artists of the Paris School - he worked beside Amadeo Modigliani - but he always refused to be considered one of them, keeping his independence and freedom. His family and the region of Brittany

Brittany

Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...

 (where his children were born) provided him with subjects for many of his paintings, before trips to Egypt led him to rediscover the lights, landscapes and characters of his childhood. He excelled in portraits, nudes and landscapes both in France and in Egypt and was enchanted by the old districts of Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

. A painter of talent, Georges Sabbagh forms one of the group of artists who Jean Cassou

Jean Cassou

Jean Cassou was a French writer, art critic, poet and member of the French Resistance during World War II.- Biography :Jean Cassou was born at Deusto, near Bilbao,...

 called "the sacrificed generation" (along with Henri de Waroquier and Jules-Émile Zingg

Jules-Émile Zingg

Jules-Émile Zingg was a French painter.- Biography:Jules-Émile Zingg was born in Montbéliard in the mountainous Jura area of Eastern France, the son of a clockmaker and woodcutter. He started drawing at four. There he began to paint the peasants and countryside...

) - absorbing the school of Les Nabis

Les Nabis

Les Nabis were a group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists who set the pace for fine arts and graphic arts in France in the 1890s. Initially a group of friends interested in contemporary art and literature, most of them studied at the private art school of Rodolphe Julian in Paris in the...

, Fauvism

Fauvism

Fauvism is the style of les Fauves , a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism...

 and Cubism

Cubism

Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...

 at the beginning of the century, but forgotten after the Second World War. Cassou describes him as a "cordial and deeply human painter". He was able to create in the end of his career a new attitude towards realism.

Sabbagh obtained French citizenship in 1930, so may be rightly considered both an Egyptian and a French painter.

He served in the British Army in the First World War. In 1916 he married the art historian Agnès Humbert

Agnès Humbert

Agnès Humbert was an art historian, ethnographer and a member of the French Resistance during World War II.- Early life :...

, by whom he had two children: the television producer and director Pierre Sabbagh

Pierre Sabbagh

Pierre Sabbagh was a major personality in French television, as a journalist, producer and director.Pierre Alain Sabbagh was born in Lannion and died in Paris...

, and the sub-mariner and advisor to General Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle

Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....

, Jean Sabbagh. Georges and Agnès divorced in 1934. After his death, his son Jean and daughter-in-law Monique were able to make a retrospective appreciation of his work and a catalogue.

External links

Georges Sabbagh [French]