Hussein Bikar

Hussein Bikar, also catalogued in auction records as Hussein Bicar, was born on 2 January 1913 in the Anfoushi district of Alexandria, Egypt. He entered the Higher School of Fine Arts in Cairo in 1928 at age fifteen, studying first under foreign instructors and later under Egyptian painters Youssef Kamel and Ahmed Sabry, and graduated in 1933 (a minority of sources cite 1934). He went on to teach art in Egypt and Morocco before turning to journalism and illustration, becoming a founding contributor to the Akhbar El-Youm press institution in 1944 and a leading figure in Egyptian press and book illustration, including widely read children's books.

Bikar was also a practicing Bahá'í and served on the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of Egypt and Sudan, according to Bahá'í community sources. Later in his career he painted works inspired by the international effort to relocate the Abu Simbel temples, including The Eighth Wonder. He received Egypt's highest cultural honor, the Mubarak Prize for Arts, in 2000, and reportedly donated the full monetary value of the prize to a children's cancer hospital. He died on 16 November 2002 in Cairo, Egypt, at age 89.

Auction catalogues occasionally list his birth year as 1912 rather than 1913; the 1913 date is more consistently supported across biographical sources, including Wikipedia, the Dalloul Art Foundation, and Egyptian press profiles.

Bikar is widely regarded in Egyptian and Arab art writing as a founding figure of the country's modern art movement and as an unusually versatile cultural figure, praised as much for his press illustration and criticism as for his painting. He is frequently referred to in Arabic press as a "philosopher of the plastic arts," a label reflected in the title of a detailed profile published in Al Majalla, and it points to a critical consensus that treats his output across painting, illustration, and writing as a single, coherent body of work.

Bikar's auction record is GBP 319,300, set by the painting Nubian House at Bonhams in London; Bonhams described the result as a record price for a modern Arab painting sold in London, though the exact sale date is not independently confirmed in available sources. Other results for his work vary widely: The Semsemia Players sold at Bonhams for GBP 47,500 including premium, Rebab Player (Esquisse) realized GBP 5,063 at Sotheby's in December 2019, and an untitled work sold for GBP 32,760 at Sotheby's in October 2020. No current gallery or estate representation for Bikar has been confirmed in available sources, and his market activity appears concentrated in Middle Eastern art sales at major international auction houses rather than continuous primary-market representation.

There is no catalogue raisonne for Bikar, and no current gallery or estate representation has been confirmed, so buyers should rely on established auction house specialists in modern Middle Eastern art for condition and provenance review. Sources also disagree on his exact birth year, with 1913 better supported in biographical writing and 1912 appearing in some auction catalogues, a discrepancy worth noting on any provenance document. His market shows a wide spread between a small number of strong six-figure results, led by the GBP 319,300 Nubian House, and far more modest prices for other works, so collectors should treat any single result as a data point rather than a reliable market average.