Gamal Kotb

Gamal Kotb (1930–2016) was an Egyptian painter and illustrator, widely regarded as one of the country's foremost book-cover artists. Born in Tanta, he studied painting and engraving at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo and joined the publishing house Dar Al-Hilal in the mid-1950s, becoming closely associated with the novels of Naguib Mahfouz, Ihsan Abdel Quddous and other leading Egyptian writers. A professor at the Arts Academy in Cairo, he shaped the visual language of modern Egyptian publishing across a career spanning more than half a century.