Artist
Youssef Ahmed
Qatari Artist Yousef Ahmad is a pioneer of modern Arabic contemporary art forms. His works are owned by some of the most renowned international museums, including the Metropolitan and the British Museum, as well as displayed by prestigious galleries, auction houses, and international art companies throughout the world.
Yousef was born in Doha in1955 and studied at Helwan University in Cairo where in 1976 he graduated with a BA in fine arts and education. He completed his Master’s degree in Fine Arts in the United States.
Yousef’s newfound knowledge of lithography and typography motivated him to exploit the potential of Arabic calligraphy, developing new forms and interpretations of the letter shapes. His first major exhibition was in Washington DC, showing his innovative approach to Arabic calligraphy and Arabic script. In March 1977, he became the first Qatari to stage a solo exhibition in Doha, focusing on the Hurufiyah style of contemporary calligraphy, a breakthrough in artistic expression in Qatar
Ismail Azzam
Ismail Azzam is a well-known Iraqi curator and artist with extensive experience and knowledge of working with museums and galleries. He moved from Iraq to Doha in 1996 to work as a painter for the Arab Museum of Modern Art, the National Council of Culture, and most recently at QM as curator at the Orientalist Museum Collection. Azzam is one of the most important contemporary portrait artists, renowned for his outstanding skills in painting prominent regional figures. Azzam’s works have been exhibited both locally and internationally, and he has taught art in several countries. He is also an important member of the Artists Syndicate and Association in Iraq.
Ala Bashir
Dr. Ala Bashir earned his Bachelors of Medicine and Surgery (MBCHB) from the Iraqi College of Medicine in 1963 while also attending the Baghdad Institute of Fine Arts (1959-1962). In 1970, after serving in the Iraqi Air Force (1963-1966), he obtained his Fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh (FRCSEd). In 1971-1972, he trained as a Plastics and Reconstructive Surgeon at the Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, UK and at the Cochin, Foch and Belvédère Hospitals in Paris, France.
Mahmoud Obaidi
Mahmoud Obaidi, born 1966 in Baghdad is an Iraqi Canadian artist whose work has been exhibited in museum and galleries around the world. After leaving Iraq in 1991, He obtained his Master of Fine Arts at the university of Guelph in Canada and completed diplomas in the new media and film from Toronto and Los Angeles, respectively.
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Nedim Kuffi
Nedim Kufi, born 1962 in Baghdad, is an Iraqi Dutch multi-disciplinary visual artist. He is primarily known for conceptual art that explores themes such as war, political conflict, exile, loss, and historical memory. Much of his work contains autobiographical elements. He is also a graphic designer and print maker.
Saadi Al Kaabi
Saadi Al Kaabi born in Najaf, Iraq, 1937, his paintings draw from the rich and diverse reservoir of Iraqi art and heritage. His art in the 1960s experimented with Cubism and Expressionism, as the simplified planes and strong outlines. Marrying aesthetic influences from Cubism with those from Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Islamic art, Al Kaabi’s work explores the nuances and contradictions of the human condition.
Dia Al Azzawi
Dia al-Azzawi was born in 1939 and achieved a degree in archaeology at Baghdad University (1958–62), at the same time as a diploma from the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad (1959–64). Azzawi worked as an archaeologist and museum curator, and also exhibited his work publicly from 1964 onwards, becoming a central figure in the development of modernist art in the Arab world. He was a member of several art movements: he founded the New Vision in 1969; joined the One Dimension Group in 1971; and, as secretary of the Iraqi Artists’ Society, established the pioneering al- Wasiti Festival in 1972.
Abdulhalim Radwi
Originally from Makkah, Abdulhalim Radwi (1939-2006) was a painter, poet and sculptor in Jeddah and a pioneer of contemporary arts in Saudi Arabia. He was one of the first Saudis to go abroad for an art education and held a BA degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome (1964).Radwi started his career as a teacher of fine arts in Makkah but became involved with the arts on a governmental level. From 1968-1974 he was director of the Jeddah Centre for Fine Arts and later (1980-1992) Director-General of the Culture and Arts of the City of Jeddah. In 1973 Radwi spent time in Madrid were he was Action Director of the Association of Arab Artists. In 1979 Radwi graduated from the Royal Arts Academy in Madrid.
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Dr. Rashid Diab
Rashid Diab (1957) was born in Wad-Medani, a town on the bank of the Blue Nile River in Sudan. From a young age realizing that what he wanted to do and could do best was to paint, to become an artist seemed like the only path in his destiny. He started his studies in 1973 at the College of Fine and Applied Arts in Khartoum. Graduating in 1978 and being awarded a scholarship to Spain to further his formation in fine art. He attended the Complutense University of Madrid and acquired licentiates in both painting and printmaking. Finally in 1991 got his PhD on the Traditional and Contemporary of Sudanese Art. Until today the only one of its kind. For the next 9 years he would teach at that same university. The Arab League then had his thesis translated to Arabic updated and extend in the year 2004.
Ismail Fattah Al Turk
Ismael Fattah Al Turk Born in 1934 in Basra, Iraq, Ismael Fattah Al Turk began his studies at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad in 1952. Prior to his graduation in 1958, when he earned degrees in both painting and sculpture, the young artist was a student of pioneering Iraqi modernist Jewad Selim. From 1961 to 1964, Fattah pursued further studies in Rome’s Accademia di Belle Arti, where he focused on sculpture, and then at the Accademia San Giacomo, also in Rome, where he studied ceramics. Upon his return to Iraq in the mid-1960s, he began his tenure at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he taught ceramics and sculpture until the 1990s.
Mohammed Omer Khalil
Mohammad Omar Khalil born in 1936 in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, Mohammad Omar Khalil is now an internationally esteemed painter, collage artist and master printmaker. Khalil spent much of his early life in Khartoum and went on to study in the city’s School of Fine and Applied Arts, where he graduated in 1959 with a Diploma in Painting. He then began teaching at the same institution, reaching the position of Head of Painting, but left several years later to pursue further education abroad. In 1963, Khalil enrolled into the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy; where he learnt a range of skills including mosaic art, fresco painting and printmaking.
Ali Talib
Born in 1944 in Basra, Iraq, Ali Talib spent his entire childhood and adolescence in his home city before moving to Baghdad in the early 1960s, where he was part of the first batch of students joining the newly opened Academy of Fine Arts. Talib had come from a strict, traditional family, experiencing many restrictions during his early life. On the basement walls of his family home, he found drawing as a way to express his frustrated emotions, creating a connection between his internal world and his external expression. While still a student, his initial artistic experiments developed, with the artist exploring ways in which to manifest his inner thoughts and struggles on canvas, eventually finding solace in mysterious and cryptic signs and symbols as a form of communication, often inspired by the rich ancient and folkloric visual traditions found in Iraq.