Mohammad El Rawas

Biography

Mohammad el Rawas, painter and printmaker, was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1951.
El Rawas graduated with a BA in painting in 1975 from the Institute of Fine Arts at the Lebanese University, but fled the country after the civil war broke out. From 1977-79 he travelled to Morocco where he worked as an art teacher at the Ecole Normale des Institutrices, Rabat, until 1979.

In 1979 el Rawas returned to Beirut, and held his first solo exhibition. Benefitting from a scholarship from The Lebanese University, he enrolled at The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, United Kingdom, and graduated with an MA degree in printmaking in 1981. In 1981 he returned to Lebanon and started teaching in 1982 at the Lebanese University, Institute of Fine Arts in Beirut, a post he held till his resignation in March 2009.

From 1983 until 1992 Mohammad el Rawas served as Secretary General of the Association of Lebanese Artists and was a founding member of the Syndicate of Lebanese Artists in 2004. From 1992-2004 he taught at the American University of Beirut, Department of Architecture and Design, and founded the etching, engraving and silkscreen studios.
Mohammad el Rawas is currently living and working in Beirut.

The artist’s early work, produced during 1970s and 80s, reflects the turbulent days of the Civil War. After fleeing his home country, he began to experiment with collage, creating graphic and printed images that moved away from his earlier representational paintings. He started producing mixed media canvases in the 1980s and 90s using wood, aluminum and string, influenced by abstract expressionism and Pop Art.

The work of Mohammad El Rawas has been shown at numerous exhibitions and biennales, both in Lebanon and internationally, and has been collected by prestigious institutions, including, Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon; National Museum of Modern Art, Baghdad, Iraq; British Museum, London, UK; Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Norway; Sharjah Museum of Contemporary Arab Art, UAE and Darat al-Funun Amman, Jordan