Hussein Bikar - The Teacher

The Teacher

Even from a very early age Bicar taught art to others, in Alexandria when he was just ten years old, he was a music teacher for society ladies who due to cultural restrictions could not use adult male teachers. One of his first jobs was a painter of folkloric scenes in the Helwan wax museum on Ibrahim street. He also found work as a teacher in elementary and secondary schools and, in 1939, was selected as a member of a team of teachers who went to Morocco to teach at the invitation of the Moroccan government. During the next four years in Morocco, he learned to speak Spanish fluently. He also traveled extensively, taking advantage of his proximity to Europe. Bicar was visiting Berlin when world II was declared. His job in Morocco ended and the Mediterranean was closed to travelers. To return to Egypt, he was forced to go by way of the Cape around South Africa. He spent three months during this journey painting portraits in Mozambique, then a Portuguese colony and the only neutral country on his route.

In 1943, after his return to Egypt, he was appointed assistant to his former professor, Ahmed Sabry, Bicar spent the next 17 years there where he went on to become the chair of the painting department where he taught the majority of a generation of contemporary Egyptian artists. His inclination to draw on Egyptian heritage for subject was inspirational for many of these students.