BIOGRAPHY

Was born to a Nubian family in Cairo in 1957. His father Hassan was Sudanese, his mother Fatma originally from Toshka (Kom Ombo – Upper Egypt ).The matriarchal traditions of this area surely contributed to Fathi's developing artistic mentality. The terrible flooding of the Nile in Upper Egypt entirely changed his family's life, as with many others, and much of what was salvaged was largely thanks to the massive intervention by UNESCO. Cairo then became the home of the family and grandparents : from well-off landowners to simple city workers. The famous sculptor Ghaleb Khater was his teacher at Cairo 's Kerabia Middle School , and it was he who first discovered his pupil's talent. Again, in the heart of the capital, a famous Egyptian library “ Madbuli ” in Via Soliman Bashià, became the place where the young artist starts reading in depth, and in particular reads about Italian Renaissance Art. A grant in 1979 allowed him to enter the Art School in Naples , Italy , where he studied Set Design under Professor Ottaviano. Here, at a particularly fruitful time for the Arts, Hassan met many important figures, among whom Lucio Amelio, Filiberto Menna, Enrico Crispolti, Gabriele Perretta, Mario Martone (with whom he played a modern “romantic” Othello together with the Naples “ Falso Movimento ” theatre group.) He graduated in 1984. Due to an article, he was invited to Pesaro , in the Marches region of Italy , by the magazine Frigidaire . Here he had the opportunity to exhibit at the Deposito Figure Gallery, and the artist decided to move to the area. In 1988 he was the first African artist present at the “ Open 88 ” section of the Venice Modern Art Biennial. Fathi Hassan's work belongs to an “image – writing” dimension: Nubian oral speech intertwined with Arabic calligraphy is preserved and sent down through generations in his “Containers of Memory”. The desert, the colour white and silence all become echoes of his predecessors and their spirituality. Thus, we find works such as Containers of Memory, Dreams, Light, Angel , Safir and Africa. There are also entire series of works dedicated to the figures of saints, black warriors, Madonnas, leaves, and holy Maps of the World.The Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art in Washington D.C. invited him to prepare a site specific installation for the museum in January 2002, thanks to the intervention of Mary Angela Schroth of Rome's Sala Uno Gallery. In 2006 the artist exhibited at the October Gallery, London, in the exhibition Text Messages . Mary Angela also signals the artist to Senegal's 2008 Dakar Biennial, in which he takes part.December 2008 finds the artist at the Museo Nazionale Villa Pisani (Stra, Venice) in an exhibition that pays homage to the various stages of his artistic career.

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