Ahmad Nawash

Abstract

Ahmad Nawash (1934–2017) was a Palestinian-Jordanian artist whose family was forcibly displaced from Ein Karem in 1948 and eventually resettled in Amman. This displacement significantly influenced his artistic vision, resulting in recurring themes of loss, resistance, and catastrophe throughout his career. Nawash studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma from 1960 to 1964, graduating with honours. He undertook advanced studies in printmaking in Bordeaux in 1970 and in Paris from 1975 to 1977, where he developed expertise in lithography and zinc etching. In 1980, he returned to Italy to study oil painting restoration and ceramics in Florence. Nawash exhibited widely in Jordan and internationally, receiving the Gold Medal at the Kuwait Biennale in 1981 and Jordan's State Recognition Award in 1990. He taught at both the University of Jordan and Yarmouk University and co-founded the Jordanian Plastic Artists Association. Nawash died in Dubai in 2017.

Biography​​

Ahmad Nawash's father was one of the men from Ein Karem who defended their village against militia attacks prior to their forced displacement in 1948. At the age of 14, Nawash and his family relocated from their village near Jerusalem to Jericho, then to Salt and Marka, and ultimately settled in the Jabal at-Taj neighbourhood of Amman. Themes of resistance, persistence, loss, and catastrophe are central to Nawash's distinctive body of work. He stated on several occasions that his first painting as a student depicted the victorious Muslim leader Saladin.

Nawash’s expressive school drawings in 1952 prompted him to seek formal training with Italian artist Armando Prön, who operated a painting studio in West Amman and collaborated with artist Mohanna Durra, one of Wijdan Ali’s instructors. Prön recommended that Nawash pursue further studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma (Academy of Fine Arts) in Rome. Drawing on his earnings as a carpenter and financial support from his father, who worked as a stonemason in Amman, Nawash, at age 26, travelled to Rome in 1960. He passed the entrance examinations and enrolled at the Academy, studying under Franco Gentilini (1909–1981), who was then the Chair of Painting. During his first two years, Nawash focused on model drawing and painting, later developing an interest in abstraction, simplifying forms, and creating his own visual vocabulary.

After extensive engagement with drawing classes, museum visits, painting, and sketching, Nawash produced Phases of Human Growth in 1962 (oil on canvas, 70 × 100 cm). This painting features a human figure concealed within juxtaposed rectangles of colour, forming a larger, ambiguous figure. The composition evokes the style of Paul Klee, whom Nawash referenced in later interviews. In 1964, he presented his works in a solo exhibition in Rome and participated in critical artistic discourse. That same year, Nawash returned to Amman with a diploma in painting, awarded with honours. His graduation thesis focused on Van Gogh, analysing how the artist’s work emerged from personal dissatisfaction and suffering, themes already present in Nawash’s own works from this period.

Upon his return to Amman in 1965, Nawash presented oil paintings in solo exhibitions at the British Council, American Cultural Center, and French Cultural Center in Amman, as well as at the Mount Scopus Hotel and the Chamber of Commerce in Jerusalem. That same year, he married his distant cousin, Jihad, a development that, according to peer artists and critics, introduced brighter colours into his paintings.

The Arab defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War had a profound impact on Nawash, who witnessed these events while residing in Amman. In response, he produced a series of works with titles that reflected his sentiments: As-Sa'iqah [The Shatter], Human Rights Crucified, The Old Man and the Birds, and Palestine. These works are sombre, featuring floating faces against murky backgrounds, and exhibit a style less defined than his later periods. Alongside his ongoing solo exhibitions in Amman, Nawash also presented his works at the Gulbenkian Hall in Baghdad (1967) and the Arab Cultural Center in Damascus (1968). For many of these exhibitions, he prepared posters, pamphlets, and lists of artwork, and compiled press coverage.

Between 1968 and 1969, Nawash trained at the Amman Teachers' College, participated in art programmes at the French Cultural Center, and actively pursued a scholarship to study printmaking in France. He reported that his portfolio was initially accepted for the programme at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris under Georges Dayez (1907–1991), but was ultimately rejected due to concerns that his Palestinian subject matter could create conflict with Jewish students. Consequently, he attended the School of Fine Arts in Bordeaux, graduating in 1970 with an advanced diploma in lithography and zinc etching. Nawash later returned to the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1975 to 1977, working in Dayez's studio for 10 hours daily, including weekends, and producing over 80 works.

The influence of Nawash's ongoing studies is reflected in statements by fellow artists and academics who hosted his exhibitions. At his 1974 exhibition in the University of Jordan library, Nawash presented 38 oil paintings addressing social issues. In 1978, at the same venue, he exhibited 15 oil paintings, including earlier works, as well as twenty-three zinc etchings and seventeen lithographs. The exhibition brochure included a statement from Dayez, who recognised Nawash's advanced lithographic skills and praised his use of nitric acid, which produced distinctive colour tones and notable textural depth.

Kamal Boullata, a fellow Palestinian artist, noted that from the 1970s onward, Nawash's figures embodied existential absurdity and submission to anguish. These figures, with disproportionate limbs rendered in earth tones and muted colours, appear as flattened and fragmented forms. United solely by their collective presence, they drift in emptiness; some lack feet, others collapse like sacks, and many are depicted without hands or arms, clutching bundles, mounted on shoulders, or supported by crutches. These figures occupy Nawash’s absurdist space, shaped by childhood trauma and displacement, which both angered and disfigured his illustrated bodies.

Nawash exhibited some of these works in a solo exhibition at the Salle des Cas Perdus at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris in 1978. Press coverage of this event increased engagement with his work among Arab artists and critics. During this period, he also served as an art education inspector for the Jordanian Ministry of Education and co-founded the Jordanian Plastic Artists Association in Amman.

In 1980, Nawash spent three months in Florence, Italy, studying oil painting restoration and ceramics. He remained proactive in engaging with exhibition venues, press outlets, and critics, often preparing and distributing materials such as pamphlets and press clippings to professionals. Nawash received the Gold Medal from the Kuwait Biennale in 1981. For his solo exhibition at Petra Bank in Amman, he was recognised for the quality and philosophical depth of his work, which distinguished him within the art scene. However, he also faced criticism for presenting numerous similar works differentiated mainly by their titles. This criticism may have arisen from divisions within the Amman art scene between academically trained and self-taught artists, as well as from controversies over leadership in the Jordanian Plastic Artists Association, disputes in which Nawash did not participate. During the 1980s, he taught drawing at the Department of Architecture at the University of Jordan and at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Yarmouk University in Irbid.

Nawash received Jordan's State Recognition Award in 1990 and a Certificate of Appreciation from the International Biennial of Prints and Drawing in Taipei in 1993. In the mid-1990s, he planned to relocate with his family to Paris, but after the sudden death of his eldest son, Moussa, he abandoned these plans and returned to Amman. Nawash continued to participate in international exhibitions, including the 2nd Egyptian International Print Triennial (1996), the 6th International Cairo Biennale (1996), and the 5th Sharjah Biennale (2001). Despite these opportunities, his work remained exhibited primarily in Jordan.

Ahmad Nawash passed away in Dubai on 18 May 2017.

Monographs

Ahmad Nawash. Exh. cat. Amman: Darat al Funun – The Khalid Shoman Foundation, 2008. https://daratalfunun.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Ahmad-Nawash_pub.pdf.

Ahmed Nawash 1961-1993. Exh. cat. Amman: Darat al Funun – The Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation, 1993.

Bibliography

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Amin, Alessandra. "Ahmad Nawash, Palestine (1934-2017)." Dalloul Art Foundation, Beirut.

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Abu Zurayq, Muhammad. Tashkīlīyyūn Urdunīyyūn Muʿāṣirūn: Qirāʾāt Baṣarīyya (Contemporary Jordanian Artists). Amman: Dar Bashir, 1997.

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Dhibian, Maamoun. ‘Ahmad Nawash fi Maʻradihi aj-Jadid, Kan al-Maʻrad Ashbah bi-Lawha Wahida Mutakarira’ [Ahmed Nawash's new exhibition was like a single, repetitive painting]. Amman: Addustour Newspaper, no. 2826, 9 June 1975.

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Younis, Ala. ‘Fakh al-Arshif’ [The Archive Trap]. Jerusalem: Al Hoash Gallery, 2021
https://www.alhoashgallery.org/ar/Article/8/فخ-الأرشيف

Online Resources

“Al Wasiti Archive 1996-2002.” Al Hoash Gallery, Yura Palestinian Visual Art Resources.

"Ahmad Nawash Collection." NYU Special Collections, Arab Art Archive. https://findingaids.library.nyu.edu/arabartarchive/ad_mc_094/.