Mohamad El Rawas was born in Beirut in 1951. He studied painting at the Lebanese University’s Institute of Fine Art and received a 1975 scholarship to study abroad; the year civil war broke out in Lebanon. He stopped painting and left his country for Syria where he worked as a stage designer for Syrian television. He traveled to Morocco where he taught art and resumed painting. He returned home in 1979 and held his first show before joining the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He returned to Lebanon in 1981 with a graduate degree in printmaking and began his academic career at the Lebanese University and at the American University of Beirut which lasted until 2008. El Rawas served as secretary general of the Association of Lebanese Artists for nine years and is a founding member of the Syndicate of Lebanese Artists. Since 1979, he has held eight major exhibits in Beirut and London and has taken part in over 40 international art biennials and exhibitions in the United Kingdom, the United States, Norway, Tunis, Brazil, Japan, Kuwait, France, Holland, Egypt, the United Arab