Georges Hanna Sabbagh
Georges Hanna Sabbagh was an Egyptian-born French visual artist and teacher, his father was Syrian and his mother was Lebanese. He was known for his oil paintings, but he also worked in watercolor, pastels, and as an engraver. He taught at the Académie Ranson, and the School of Fine Arts, Cairo.
Biography
Georges Hanna Sabbagh was born on 10 August 1887, at Alexandria, to a family of Syrian and Lebanese descent.He studied art in Paris, being the first Egyptian student at the École du Louvre. He was a pupil of Paul Sérusier, Félix Vallotton and the symbolist painter Maurice Denis. It can be said that he was attached to the artists of the Paris School, he worked beside Amedeo Modigliani but he always refused to be considered one of them, keeping his independence and freedom.
He taught at the Académie Ranson in Paris; and starting in 1926, at the School of Fine Arts, Cairo.
His family and the region of Brittany 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. A painter of talent, Georges Sabbagh forms one of the group of artists who Jean Cassou called "the sacrificed generation" - absorbing the school of Les Nabis, Fauvism and Cubism 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.
He served in the British Army in the First World War. He was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.
After his death, his son Jean and daughter-in-law Monique made a retrospective exhibition of his work, and an art catalogue.
Personal life
In 1916, he married the art historian Agnès Humbert, by whom he had two children: the television producer and director Pierre Sabbagh, and the sub-mariner and advisor to General Charles de Gaulle, Jean Sabbagh.Georges and Agnès divorced in 1934.