Menhat Helmy was born in Helwan, Egypt in on July 11, 1925 as the middle child in a family of seven sisters and two brothers. She graduated from Cairo's High Institute of Pedagogic Studies for Art in 1949 before continuing her education abroad at the Slade School of Fine Art between 1953–55, where she focused on drawing, painting, and etching. She later studied coloured graphics at Morley College in London during her second stay in London between 1973-79.
