Public Figures & Cultural Luminaries

Arts & Music

14

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Roushdy Abaza

رشدي أباظة

Egypt

1926 – 1980 (53 years old)

Charismatic leading man dubbed the 'Cary Grant of Egyptian Cinema', starring in over 150 classics of the Egyptian Golden Age including Struggle on the Nile, Jamila the Algerian, and Sunset and Sunrise.

Sharqia, Egypt

14 Full Record →

Arts & Music

32

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Clyfford Still

Clyfford Still

United States

1904 – 1980 (75 years old)

American Abstract Expressionist titan who pioneered monumental Color Field painting with rugged, palette-knife fissures of raw pigment and maintained uncompromising artistic autonomy.

Baltimore, United States

32 Full Record →

Arts & Music

4

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Jijé (Joseph Gillain)

Joseph Gillain

Belgium

1914 – 1980 (66 years old)

Founding master and mentor of the Marcinelle School of comics who sustained Spirou magazine single-handedly during World War II and taught André Franquin, Morris, and Will at his Waterloo studio.

Essonne, France

4 Full Record →

Arts & Music

37

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Philip Guston

Phillip Goldstein

Canada

1913 – 1980 (66 years old)

American painter who transitioned from ethereal Abstract Expressionism to revolutionary, cartoonish Neo-Expressionist allegories of hooded Klansmen, cigarettes, and studio angst.

Woodstock, United States

37 Full Record →

Arts & Music

33

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Oskar Kokoschka

Oskar Kokoschka

Austria

1886 – 1980 (93 years old)

Austrian Expressionist painter, graphic artist, and dramatist renowned for his nervous, psychologically incisive portraits and panoramic, turbulent cityscapes.

Montreux, Switzerland

33 Full Record →

Arts & Music

30

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Sonia Delaunay

Sarah Ilinitchna Stern

Russia

1885 – 1979 (94 years old)

Ukrainian-French artist and designer who co-founded Simultanism and Orphism, bringing pure geometric color rhythm to paintings, textiles, fashion, and theatrical decor.

Paris, France

30 Full Record →

Arts & Music

15

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Seif Wanly

سيف وانلي

Egypt

1906 – 1979 (72 years old)

Pioneering Egyptian modernist painter who introduced Italian futurist dynamism and vibrant chromatic cubism to Alexandria, documenting Nubian culture prior to the flooding of Lake Nasser.

Alexandria, Egypt

15 Full Record →

Arts & Music

2,968

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Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus Jr.

United States

1922 – 1979 (56 years old)

Towering jazz double bassist, composer, and bandleader whose fiercely passionate compositions fused blues, gospel, and third-stream jazz.

Varanasi, India

2,968 Full Record →

Arts & Music

5

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Abdelhalim Hemche

عبد الحليم همش

Algeria

1906 – 1979 (72 years old)

Pioneering academic painter from Tlemcen, graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, renowned for his luminous canvases depicting Zayyanid monuments and folkloric traditions.

Tlemcen, Algeria

5 Full Record →

Arts & Music

4

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Louay Kayali

لؤي كيالي

Syria

22 January 1934 – 26 December 1978 (44 years old)

Profound Syrian modernist painter whose melancholic, elegant portraits captured the dignified suffering of fishermen, shoe-shiners, and refugees.

Aleppo, Syria

4 Full Record →

Arts & Music

32

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El Hadj M'Hamed El Anka

الحاج محمد العنقى

Algeria

1907 – 1978 (71 years old)

Algerian musical titan venerated as 'The Cardinal' (El Cardinal), who created and perfected the genre of Algerian Chaabi music, transforming centuries-old classical Andalusian poetry into the popular soul of the Casbah of Algiers.

Algiers, Algeria

32 Full Record →

Arts & Music

36

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Giorgio de Chirico

Giorgio de Chirico

Greece

1888 – 1978 (90 years old)

Italian painter and writer who founded the Scuola Metafisica, famous for his haunting, dreamlike city squares, elongated shadows, faceless mannequins, and metaphysical silence.

Rome, Italy

36 Full Record →

Arts & Music

32

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Carlos Chavez

Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez

Mexico

1899 – 1978 (79 years old)

Mexican composer and conductor who founded the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico and authored the Sinfonia India, uniting pre-Columbian indigenous percussion with modern symphonic form.

Mexico City, Mexico

32 Full Record →

Arts & Music

33

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Hannah Höch

Anna Therese Johanne Höch

Germany

1889 – 1978 (88 years old)

German Dada artist and the supreme pioneer of photomontage, famous for her subversive, witty, and feminist critiques of Weimar society, gender roles, and mass media.

West Berlin, Germany

33 Full Record →

Arts & Music

5

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Cheikh Abdelkrim Dali

عبد الكريم دالي

Algeria

1914 – 1978 (63 years old)

Virtuoso master of Andalusian Gharnati and Hawzi music, who served as a musical bridge between Tlemcen and Algiers and composed the beloved pilgrimage anthem 'Rehla Djamila'.

Algiers, Algeria

5 Full Record →

Arts & Music

5

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Cheikh Saïd El Meddah

الشيخ سعيد المداح

Algeria

1905 – 1978 (73 years old)

Revered oral storyteller and praise-singer (Meddah) of the Dahra coast who preserved hundreds of historical epics, heroic tales, and moral fables.

Ténès (Chélif), Algeria

5 Full Record →

Arts & Music

13

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Kaddour Belkaïd

قدور بلقايد

Algeria

1905 – 1978 (73 years old)

Master violinist and pillar of the Tlemcen Andalusian musical tradition (Gharnati) who preserved centuries of classical Andalusian nubahs, muwashshahat, and hawzi poetry.

Tlemcen, Algeria

13 Full Record →

Arts & Music

42

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Maria Anna Cecilia Sofia Kalogeropoulos (Maria Callas)

Μαρία Κάλλας

United States

2 December 1923 – 16 September 1977 (53 years old)

Revered as 'La Divina', the greatest dramatic soprano of the 20th century who resurrected the forgotten early 19th-century Italian bel canto repertoire (Norma, Lucia, Medea) through peerless vocal drama and tragic acting.

Paris, France

42 Full Record →