Noureddine Kour
1960– · Oran
Noureddine Kour was born in Oran on 15 December 1960. He studied fine arts at the University of Mostaganem, where he took a licence, and trained in calligraphy at the Institute of Technology in Oran. He began working with letters in 1980 and, by his own count, has made more than 1,600 works, most of them in contemporary hurufiyya. He taught at the school of fine arts in 1990-91 and then taught art at a secondary school in Oran until he retired. His paintings rest on Arabic script, with a special place for thuluth, and also use diwani, Persian ta'liq and Kufic; he paints in bright acrylic and works the vowel marks into the design, drawing on Algerian ornament and local symbols. He has shown widely in Algeria and abroad, including Madrid in 2009, and won prizes in Oran, Mostaganem and Algiers. In 2023 the Egyptian calligraphers' head Mus'ad Khudayr al-Bursa'idi gave him an ijaza in hurufiyya, among the first of its kind, and he published a book on his approach.
Achievements
- Licence in fine arts from the University of Mostaganem; calligraphy training at the Institute of Technology in Oran.
- First prizes for Arabic calligraphy in Oran (1982) and Mostaganem (1996).
- Exhibitions at the National Museum of Miniature, Illumination and Calligraphy in Algiers (2014, with Taleb Mahmoud) and the Museum of Modern Art in Oran (2017, 71 works).
- Honoured by the Sharjah Department of Culture in 2019.
- Received in 2023 an ijaza in hurufiyya from the Egyptian calligraphers' head Mus'ad Khudayr al-Bursa'idi, and was guest of honour at the Cairo International Forum for Arabic Calligraphy.
- Published Turathiyyat wa-hurufiyyat al-khatt al-'Arabi (2023) and founded a calligraphy gallery and a learners' club in Oran.
Taught by: Mus'ad Khudayr al-Bursa'idi
His work
He is living, so his calligraphy is still under copyright and no works can be shown.
Write in the tradition this hand shaped.
Write in this tradition now →Living calligraphers you can buy from — signed originals on paper, from AED 550: Anwar Alhulwani (Thuluth) · Ahmed Alhawary (Jali Thuluth, Naskh) · Rasha Kasim (Kufi) — or every Thuluth piece the store makes: Thuluth collection.
Sources
- Arabic Wikipedia: birth, studies, career, style, exhibitions, prizes, ijaza ar.wikipedia.org
- Algerian Radio (cited by Arabic Wikipedia) news.radioalgerie.dz
- El Djoumhouria profile eldjoumhouria.dz
- Jeune Indépendant article jeune-independant.net
Written by the MASHQ studio · last updated 2026-10-05. Further reading, the standard references in English: Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy (Edinburgh University Press, 2006) · Annemarie Schimmel, Calligraphy and Islamic Culture (New York University Press, 1984) · Yasin Hamid Safadi, Islamic Calligraphy (Thames and Hudson, 1978).