The BA Mourns the Loss of Mr. Samir Gharib, Former Head of the National Organization for Urban Harmony
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The Bibliotheca Alexandrina mourns the loss of the critic and writer Mr. Samir Gharib, former head of the National Organization for Urban Harmony. Dr. Ahmed Zayed, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, on behalf of the Library management and staff, extends his sincere condolences to the family and loved ones of the deceased.
It is worth noting that the late Mr. Gharib was one of the leading figures of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture in the 1990s and made significant contributions to supporting the cultural movement in the country.
Samir Gharib was born in 1954 in Manfalut, Assiut Governorate, where he received his education before joining the Faculty of Mass Communication at Cairo University and earning a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism in May 1975. He began his professional career as a journalist at Al-Akhbar newspaper, and later worked at the Ministry of Culture, serving as the Minister of Culture’s advisor on journalism and art from 1987 to 1999. He was the first to head the Cultural Development Fund in 1990, and also served as president of the National Library and Archives, before being appointed as president of the Egyptian Academy in Rome in 2002. He later became the first president of the National Organization for Urban Harmony from 2004 to 2014.
Mr. Gharib had published a number of distinctive books in the field of visual arts, most notably: Surrealism in Egypt (1986), The Banner of Imagination (1993), Inscriptions on Time: Pages from the History of Visual Arts (1997), On the History of Fine Arts (1998), and The Book of Art (2003).