Sudan’s rich contemporary arts history is seldom referred to amidst all the headlines about war, poverty, and famine that make it to the global media. After World War II, when graduates of Khartoum’s Gordon Memorial College School of Design formed the movement known as the Khartoum School, artists like the father of Sudanese modernism, Ibrahim Elsalahi, calligrapher Osman Wagialla, and Ahmed Shibrain pioneered a unique fine arts movement that reflected a confluence of African, Arab, and Islamic influences. The next generation of artists emerging in the 1970s including painters like Bakri Bilal and Rashid Diab, who focused on painting and color. Sudan was a center for the Afro-Arab art experience.

Read More: A Return to Art Appreciation, Sudan Style