[1] After years of schooling in Khartoum and in Alexandria, Egypt, he studied modern history and fine arts in England, where he had his first exhibition in London's Gallery One in 1957.
In 1973 he began a second artistic career as filmmaker, producing several documentary films and cinematographic essays on subjects such as traditional rites or history in Sudan, as well as on life in exile during his later years in Cairo.
Hussein Shariffe was the son of a medical doctor and his wife, both from families related to Muhammed Ahmed El-Mahdi (1844–1885), the religious and political founder of the Mahdist State.
[1] In 1973, he was in charge of the film section in the Ministry of Culture and Information in Khartoum, at the same time as Gadalla Gubara and Ibrahim el-Salahi.
His first documentary film, The Throwing of Fire, centred on a traditional fertility rite of the Ingessana people in the southern Blue Nile State, celebrating ashes, the sun and good harvests.
[6] In 2010, his paintings were exhibited at the Salwa Zeidan Gallery, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates,[7] and in 2017, at the me Collector's room of the Olbricht Foundation in Berlin, Germany.