Youssof Kohzad

Youssof Kohzad ( b. 1935 in Kabul ) is an Afghan poet, actor and artist and writer.

Life

Kohzad was born in 1935 in Chendawol, a district of Kabul. After the conclusion of the German Nejat High School in Kabul, he wrote plays and performed them in Kabul theater. Then he went to the University of Art in Rome. In 1953 he finished his education there.

In 1965 he returned back from Rome. He traveled with other Afghan artists in the former Soviet Union, India and the GDR.

• From 1966 to 1969 he was Head of Fine Art at the Department of Art and Media in Afghanistan.
• In 1971 he became a consultant for the Kabul theater.
• 1976 Kohzad was then Minister of Education.

In the same year he founded the National Gallery in Kabul. At that time, the gallery had 700 paintings, of which thirty are still available today. 1992 found him and his family on their flight from the Mujahideen first refuge in India. Later he and his family fled to the U.S., where they currently live in Tracy, California.

Works (selection)

• Aspects of beauty in art
• A collection of poetry
• The art created by God

Poetry

• Black pearls