He suffered from a tormented upbringing, moving house frequently after being orphaned at an early age.

In 1910, he joined the Cairo prince Youssef Kamal Fine Arts School and graduated in 1914.

He traveled to Paris in 1919 where he joined the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and then the Académie Julian[3][4] studying in the atelier of François Schommer and under Prof. Paul Albert Laurens, as well as with the painter Emmanuel Fougerat.

[5] When he returned to Egypt, he worked as an illustrator with the Entomology Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, then as an artist with the Ministry of Public Works, which sent him on a further scholarship to Paris; there, he exhibited his painting "The Nun" in the Grand Palais in 1929, and was awarded the Prix d'Honneur by the French Arts Society.

There he fostered the talents of numerous Egyptian masters such as Hussein Bicar, Salah Taher, and Hamed Owais.