Alefelege Selam

Life & Legacy

Ale Felege Selam Heruy (Amharic: አለ ፈለገ ሰላም; 1923 or 1924 – July 11, 2016) was an Ethiopian artist and teacher, best known as the founder of the Addis Ababa Fine Arts School, Ethiopia's first formal school of art. The son and grandson of church painters, he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago on an imperial scholarship, graduating in 1954. Back home, he paid for the new school largely through sales of his pupils' work, and directed it from its opening in 1957/58 until the Derg forced him out after the 1974 revolution.
In later decades he worked on conserving religious art and painted murals in several Orthodox churches, among them Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa and St. Mary's in Adama. The institution has carried his name, as the Ale School of Fine Arts and Design, since 2010.