Mahmoud Kahil

Early years

Mahmoud Kahil, was born in Tripoli, North Lebanon in 1936.

Kahil had an innate gift for drawing satirical cartoons about society and never received any formal artistic training. He enrolled at the American University of Beirut, but dropped out in his sophomore year to work as a graphic designer at an advertising agency in Beirut and pursue cartooning.

Kahil then joined the weekly magazine Al Usbu Al-Arabi as a layout designer from 1961 to 1963. While working as an Art Director for various publications, Kahil also began drawing professional cartoons. From 1963 to 1965 he drew the cartoon strip Busat Al Rih in the children's magazine Shahrazade. In 1965, he moved to Lissan Al Hal newspaper and started publishing his first ever political cartoons editorially, remaining with the paper until 1966. Kahil drew cartoons for Mu'assassat Al Hayat from 1966-1968 before moving to Dar Annahar from 1968-1971 to work as Art director of Al Hasna' Magazine. From 1971 -1973, Kahil worked as Art Director for Al-Usbu' Alarabi while also publishing cartoons in the English-language Daily Star newspaper and Monday Morning Magazine.

In 1967, Kahil, along with Farid Salman and Roro Breidi, began producing the ambitious and futuristic newsreel series, Actualitees Libanaises exclusively for major cinemas in Hamra, Beirut. The three artists would film the audience entering the cinemas and rush back to the lab, develop the footage and then screen the clips back to the audience before the film began. In producing the series, Kahil became the first cartoonist to draw live events for the audience on the big screen. Actualitees Libanaises is considered one of the best filmed newsreels in the region, archiving the history of Lebanon as it unfolded.

Lebanese Civil War

Kahil was already the father of a daughter, Dana, when his son Nazmi was born on 13 April 1975, the day the Lebanese Civil War broke out. Having to travel between East and West Beirut for work in the midst of a bloody civil war, made him realize his days were numbered in the country he loved so much and he had to leave.

Mahmoud Kahil left for London in 1978, where he began working with Asharq Al-Awsat, Arab News, and Al-Majalla magazine. Kahil also became the chief cartoonist for the monthly English-language journal Middle East International.

Style

From London, Kahil was able to better reach the world with his biting humour. During the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, some of his best drawings were exhibited to great acclaim.

He gradually developed a style where visuals took precedence over words. Many of his fans will remember his scathing cartoons of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin and Israeli Defence Minister Ariel Sharon - all recurring sources of Kahil's satire.

As an Israeli once wrote, "I admire your cartoonist M. Kahil. He has such an incisive, unassuming style. A style that is so lacking in our miserable region. It is relieving to find that the 'enemy' is human."

He is also remembered for the trademark small, black crow that used to appear in all of his earlier cartoons. The crow was a symbol of the wayward state of Arab politics.(Ghassan Joha, Star Staff Writer) In the early 1990s Kahil suddenly stopped drawing his crow. Many believed it was because he was particularly upset at the deteriorating Arab political relations during the 1991 Gulf War. After the Gulf War, Kahil believed the crow was no longer needed since the Arab affairs were locked in a pool of stagnation. (Ghassan Joha, Star Staff Writer)

A humanist

"Kahil was at heart a humanist. He cared for the poor, the oppressed and the dispossessed. It did not matter what the ethnic or religious beliefs these people held," explained Arab News' Editor in Chief, Khaled Al-Maeena in Kahil's obituary. Drawing caricatures was Kahil's weapon in fighting oppression and wrongdoing. He also saw it as a way of searching for the truth which lies inevitably behind closed doors. Kahil was a great supporter of the Palestinian people and their just cause for independence.

Kahil's most lasting and important legacy as a cartoonist is the way in which his work, with remarkable simplicity, familiarized the world with the Arab reality and highlighted issues that are vital for the Arab people. Kahil was a visual journalist, educating as much as entertaining. Whether his readers agreed or disagreed with Kahil's views, his cartoons left a lasting impression. They were intelligent, sometimes painful and other times amusing, but above all, always insightful and thought-provoking.

Mahmoud Kahil died unexpectedly at the age of 66 from complications during a heart surgery in London on 11 February 2003.

The Mahmoud Kahil Award

On 29 April 2015 the initiative of Mutazz and Rada Sawwaf was launched at the American University of Beirut to create a new comics award for all talent in the arab world in the field of cartoons, illustrations and graphic design and name it "The Mahmoud Kahil Award".

Awards

1984 - Best Arab Cartoonist of the year by the Mustapha & Ali Amin journalism award

Media