Omer Khairy

Omer Khairy (1939–1999; Arabic: عمر خيري; also known as George Edward Scuncucur), was a Sudanese artist and modern painter.

Life and career

Khairy was born in Omdurman, Sudan in 1939. He was the last of seven children born to Abdallah Khairy and Fatima Al Hajj Mohamed, who lived in the Abasseya neighbourhood in Omdurman. He went to school at the Abbasiya Elementary School in 1947, where he was first introduced to art, learning to draw, etch, and produce works in clay. Inspired by his elder brother Abdul Aziz, who was an artist, he became interested in drawing, and focused particularly on portraits and animals, which he included in his animated scenes of the Sudanese city. He studied art at the Secondary School in Khartoum Polytechnic in 1957 and later trained at the Khartoum College of Art, where he focused on drawing.

Having lost his father at a young age, Khairy was especially close to his mother. In 1963, following his mother's passing, he tragically suffered a nervous breakdown and travelled to Cairo, Egypt for psychiatric treatment. Upon his return to Sudan, he wrote The Scuncucur Biography (1972) which told the life story of an imaginary Englishman that he referred to as George Edward Scuncucur. From this point on, he began to sign his works interchangeably as Omer Khairy and George Edward Scuncucur, and likely thought of himself as both people.