Born in Amman, Jordan in 1938 to a Lebanese father and a Turkish mother, Mohanna Durra is a Jordanian painter widely regarded as a pioneer of the Jordanian Arts Movement and for being the first to introduce Cubism and abstract art into the Jordanian visual arts
community. He is a professor at the Faculty of Fine Art and Design at the University of Jordan and serves as the President of the Jordan Association of Fine Arts. At a young age, his father sent him to study art with the former Russian officer George Allief, who taught him the basics of watercolour, drawing and painting, as well as the conventions of perspective drawing. In 1954, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. He claims that the academy caused a great deal of unwelcome notions, which led him to find solace in self-motivated discoveries: studying the classics through art in museums and churches. After graduating in 1958, Durra returned to Amman to teach history of art at the Teachers’ Training College. In 1964, Durra established the Fine Arts Section at the Department of Culture and Art, Amman, and then established the Jordan Institute of Fine Arts in 1970. Durra is best known for his portraits and also for the way he treated shifting masses of colour.
