Mohieddin Al Labbad

• Date of birth: March 25, 1940 in Al-Maghrablin neighborhood, Kafr El-Sheikh Governorate, Egypt
• Date of death: 4 September 2010 and burial in Cairo, Egypt
• His children: Mustafa and the artist Ahmed

An Egyptian painter and visual artist born on March 25, 1940, an Egyptian painter and visual artist specializing in graphics, published the first caricature page of Tahrir magazine in 1956. He studied oil painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo from 1957 to 1962, and after graduating he worked as a cartoonist in the Egyptian and Arab press, and before and during his studies he worked as a painter for the children’s magazine “Sinbad” in the years 1960-1962, and as a painter and author of children’s books at Dar al-Ma’arif, and published his first children’s books “The Queen of the Islands” in 1961, and in 1961 he worked as a cartoonist in the magazines “Rose Al-Yousef” and “Good Morning”. He has also worked throughout his life as a painter and designer of newspapers, magazines, books and cultural publications for young and old people in Egypt, Arab countries and Europe, as well as one of the most prominent book cover designers in the Arab world and Al-Labbad is famous for designing book covers in which he relied on the use of artistic elements of Arab folklore.

Stages of his Working life

• Co-founder and managing editor of the children’s magazine “Karwan”. Tahrir Press and Publishing House, Cairo 1963-1964
• Technical Supervisor and Editorial Director of Samir Magazine, Dar Al Hilal, Cairo, 1968
• Co-founder and artistic director of Dar al-Fata al-Arabi, the first house specialized in children’s books, Beirut in 1974
• He founded the Arab Experimental Workshop for Children’s Books and the Arab Graphic Centre in 1976.
• Technical Director and General Supervisor of the project of issuing the model experimental issue of the magazine Children from 4 to 7 years old “Yassin and Yasmine”, National Center for Children’s Culture, Cairo 1983
• Basic Project Designer and Director of Introductory Issue No. “Zero” of “The Little Arab” Magazine, Ministry of Information, Kuwait 1985
• Technical Supervisor of the Children’s Publications Project on the Department of Culture, Palestine Liberation Organization, Tunis, 1989
• Founder, editor and artistic director of the magazine “W”, which specializes in following up the publications of children’s books in Arab countries and the rest of the world
• He founded the Arab Graphic Centre in Cairo and worked as a graphic designer and artistic director
• Founder of the School of Visual Pleasure in directing newspapers and books.
• He worked for Le Monde Diplomatic, Arabic Edition in Paris (a monthly magazine for the defence of peoples’ issues).
• Project designer (book in a newspaper in 2007) and has been supervising its publication for four years.

In 1972, he travelled on a course to the “democratic” East Germany prepared to graduate journalistic leaders, worked in Germany for a satirical cartoon magazine called “Owl Mirror” – then spent a period in Czechoslovakia from which he benefited technically, and his most important trip to France where he discovered another world, where he discovered the impact of the 1968 youth revolution through caricature magazines

He has published a number of books in Egypt and other Arab countries, which have won a number of local, Arab and international awards, some of which he has published in translation in several foreign languages, and he has also presented a series of books that he authored and designed for the category of girls and boys «Teenagers over the age of eleven». He has also participated as a jury member in a number of local and international competitions.