Rafik elKamel (1944-2021)

Painter of the subtle and refined — between Tunis and Paris, a free and luminous trajectory

Born in 1944 in Tunis, Rafik El Kamel emerged as one of the key figures of the contemporary Tunisian art scene. A graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts de Tunis in 1966, he belonged to the pioneering generation that, in the wake of independence, embodied the plastic renewal and cultural openness of the 1960s.

He continued his artistic training at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, where he studied from 1967 to 1971. During this period, his work evolved towards a more refined expression, characterized by formal rigor, sobriety of gesture, and a deep attachment to light as a pictorial substance.

Upon returning to Tunis, he taught at the École des Beaux-Arts, helping to train new generations of artists while maintaining a regular international exhibition career. From 1966 onwards, his works appeared in salons and galleries in Tunis, Paris, and beyond: the Salon de Mai in Paris, the Biennale of Young Artists in 1977, and collective exhibitions across Europe, the Maghreb, and the Arab world. In 2002, his work was presented at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris in the exhibition Perspectives on Contemporary Arab Art.

His work, both meditative and rigorous, received multiple accolades. In 1984, he was awarded the First Prize of the City of Tunis as well as the First Prize at the annual Contemporary Art Exhibition in Tunis.

Through a silent yet deeply expressive painting, Rafik El Kamel built over decades a pictorial language that reaches the essential, far from noise and fleeting trends.