Arts International Ltd. of Chicago, Illinois, defined Jon Rashad Kamal as "a painter, an actor and a prince." Well almost. The son of an Imperial Ottoman princess and an Egyptian landowner, Sultanzade Jon Rashad Kamal Bey Effendi was born in Cairo, Egypt in May 1935. Along with Omar Sharif and the late King Hussein of Jordan he attended Egypt's Victoria College, for long considered THE public school in the Middle East. He then enrolled in Cairo's American University graduating in 1958 with a B.A. in English. A Ford Foundation grant in hand Jon Rashad signed up with the famous Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia where in 1963 his combined talents as artist and actor were used "first to design and paint sets, then to perform before the backdrops he had created." His artwork has been strongly influenced by his paternal relation Mahmoud Saiid (1897-1964), one of Egypt's foremost artists, and by his Turkish uncle Prince-artist Omer Fevzi. In the United States Jon Rashad studied with Uruguay-born artist Jorge Dumas (1928-1985). The result is a most unique approach to the subject matter "combining the classical staid Egyptian outlook with the more carefree, colorful South American feeling." Add to this the strong pull of the theatre and the finished painting emerges as "a drama in oil, evident in the Kamal still files."