Mostafa El Razzaz

Mostafa El Razzaz is an Egyptian painter, sculptor and writer on art, born in Dakahlia. His paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures are often peopled with birds, horses, riders and figures taken from Egyptian folk tradition.

His imagery draws on popular epics, including the tales of Antara ibn Shaddad and Abu Zayd al-Hilali, and on his early reading of Al-Isfahani's Kitab al-Aghani and Al-Qazwini's Aja'ib al-Makhluqat. He has described starting a painting from a single bird or plant and building the scene through improvisation. Painting and sculpture are linked in his practice: a figure drawn on a canvas can become a sculpture. His 2012 show at Picasso Art Gallery in Cairo, Sweeping from the Shop, reworked unfinished canvases from many years.

El Razzaz studied at the Higher Institute of Art Education, taking a BA in 1965 and an MA in 1972, and completed a doctorate in the United States in 1979. He began making art as a student in 1962 and held his first exhibition in 1966. He led the General Organization of Cultural Palaces from 1997 to 1999 and founded the Faculty of Specific Education for Arts, Music and Media, which he served as dean. He received the Nile Award in the arts in 2017. The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts in Amman holds four of his works.