Khalifa Qattan

Abstract

Khalifa Qattan (1934–2003) played a pioneering role in Kuwait’s art movements as an artist who conceived of art and its public, civic role as inseparable, and by documenting the fascinating cosmopolitan art scene unfolding around him. From his conceptualisation of “Circulism”—a style combining philosophy, humanity’s connection to nature, geometry, and socio-ethical perspectives—to his contributions to the establishment of key cultural institutions and exhibition spaces, Qattan was a shaping force in Kuwait’s art infrastructures during the 1960s and 1970s, a period when Kuwait’s national art scene took form. Throughout his life, his practice remained deeply connected to the world around him, including the 1990–1991 Iraqi occupation, which left its traces upon his post-war work. By the 1980s, he had withdrawn from institutional commitments, extending his penchant for infrastructural initiatives into the private sphere by creating an archive that is today part of the Khalifa and Lidia Qattan Art Museum. The archive, which also traces his personal trajectory from its beginning, offers a collection of materials attesting to his broad understanding of artistic exchanges among the Arab countries and beyond.

Biography

Early life and education

Born in Kuwait in 1934, Khalifa Qattan grew up amid the major economic transformations. These were occasioned by the massive oil reserves discovered in 1938 and first exported in 1946, in a country that was a British protectorate until its independence in 1961. He attended several schools, including Mubarakiyya, Kuwait’s first public school. The art of drawing had first become a subject of interest in Kuwait during the mid-1930s, and specialised teachers were brought from Egypt and Palestine to introduce artistic techniques into the school curricula. At Mubarakiyya, the Egyptian teacher Mohammed AlSleiman encouraged Qattan to depict everyday scenes, such as people at work in the marketplace, in their homes, or in the streets: depicting the rhythms of daily life would become a lifelong artistic practice.

Qattan left high school in 1950 after finishing 10th grade and took up a teaching post at Najah School to support himself financially while painting outside working hours. In 1953, he exhibited as part of the school’s end-of-year festival, later describing this as his first exhibition. Art exhibitions were a novelty at the time, and school exhibitions served as a primary venue for artistic visibility. Among them, the end-of-year show held at Mubarakiyya in 1942–43, organised by handicraft and carpentry teacher Aqab al-Khatib, is considered the first-time amateur artworks were presented to the public in an exhibition format—a model that by the late 1950s would expand to encompass art proper.

These were also the years when talented young Kuwaitis began to receive state-funded scholarships to study art, primarily in Egyptian and European academic and vocational institutions, generally joining Kuwait’s educational system upon graduation. In 1953, Qattan received a scholarship to study at Leicester College in England—not art, as he had wished, but carpentry and woodwork machining. He spent the following five years studying machine drawing, technology, geometry, and construction, among other subjects. Nevertheless, he seized the opportunity to deepen his artistic knowledge by visiting museums and practising art informally, although no works from this period are preserved. In 1956, he met Lidia, an Italian national who was studying nursing, who would become his wife.

Early career and arts organizing

Qattan returned to Kuwait in 1958 and two years later married Lidia, who would go on to become a writer, artist, and key intellectual collaborator in the conceptualisation and theorisation of Circulism. They welcomed their daughter Jalila in 1963.

Like many of his contemporaries, upon returning to Kuwait Qattan joined the education system, teaching at Shuwaikh Technical College before joining the Ministry of Public Works, a job he held until 1962. During what his wife Lidia would describe as a period of professional dissatisfaction, he turned to art for consolation, developing his own style under the influence of Cubism as well as readings on philosophy, sciences, and humanity’s relation with nature, which contributed to his development of an ethical perspective on the emotional complexity of the human condition.

In this same period Kuwaiti schools were beginning to organise exhibitions as a means of giving visibility to talented artists rather than merely to display student works. In 1958, the Arab Writers’ Conference had hosted a competition and exhibition at Shuwaikh Secondary School, bringing together 142 works by amateur and emerging artists. The following year, the inaugural Ma’aradh Al Rabia’ (Spring Exhibition) at Mubarakiyya School—an annual event that ran until 1967—marked a foundational step in Kuwait’s development of an art infrastructure. The spring exhibition galvanised the growing community of Kuwaiti artists to form themselves into a nascent fine arts movement. Qattan exhibited in both the Shuwaikh Secondary School exhibition and the first Mubarakiyya School spring exhibition. The latter paved the way for the establishment of the Free Atelier (al-marsam al-hurr) in 1960, providing amateur artists with space, materials, and supervision free of charge, under the patronage of the Department of Education. The Free Atelier was the first State-sponsored space in the Arabian Peninsula, and it was followed by similar initiatives elsewhere: a marsam al-hurr opened in Aden (formerly the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen) in 1976, in Doha (Qatar) in 1977, and in Oman during the 1980s, among other examples.

Development of Circulism

Qattan advocated that it was the artist’s responsibility to bridge the divide between artists and the public viewer; therefore, he staged his first solo exhibitions in Kuwait in 1962, at the Mubarakiyya gymnasium and al-Ahmadi, an oil company town. That same year, encouraged by the positive reception his work had received, he built an international presence, exhibiting in Italy and Egypt and gaining press visibility and accolades. In 1962–1963, he developed his concept of Circulism (sirkulizm, al-da’ira, also referred to as Circlism in early publications), a conception that resulted from readings about philosophy, nature, and the sciences in general as well as Cubist theory. Its origins lay in what he and his wife Lidia would later describe as a philosophical style of art. In a publication written by Lidia Qattan (circa 1964), Circulism was defined as a “new study in the field of figurative art,” built on three principles: the first was the curved or circular line, described as “the essential base to express the evolution[ary] movement of life and its perpetual [evolvement]”; the second was colour, with its [distinct] symbolic meaning; the third was subject matter, an exclusive realism mirroring the passions, instincts, and habits of life (Qattan, circa 1964). In 1962, Qattan joined the Free Atelier as a full-time artist, receiving studio space and a lifelong stipend from the Ministry of Education, which allowed him to fully concentrate on developing Circulism.

Arts advocacy and artistic infrastructures

During the 1960s and 1970s, Qattan was deeply involved in building networks and promoting the cultivation of art in the public sphere. In 1967, he participated in the establishment of the Kuwaiti Society for Formative Arts (KSFA, renamed in 2004 as the Kuwait Association of Fine Arts). He was elected as its first president in 1968, a position he held until 1974. Qattan promoted several key events that fostered the internationalisation of Kuwaiti art in the following years: the Kuwait Biennale of 1969; KSFA’s representation abroad at the Arab Artists Union in Damascus in 1971; and KSFA’s participation in the First Arab Biennale in Baghdad in 1974. He also remained closely involved with the Free Atelier, which in 1971 became the responsibility of the Ministry of Information, who awarded certificates to Kuwaiti artists after three to five years of training. The ministry’s issuing of credentials was terminated in 1978.

Other state-led initiatives flourished at this time, among them the Kuwait National Council for Culture, Arts & Letters (NCCAL). Established in 1973, its founding signalled the government’s commitment to promoting large-scale cultural undertakings: Qattan was among its earliest members. Lidia Qattan describes how the construction of an art hall was another initiative Khalifa had long envisaged—a permanent space for exhibitions, complete with a library, archive, and museum—and in 1974 the Dahia Abdullah al-Salim Exhibition Hall was inaugurated by the NCCAL. It would hold numerous exhibitions in the years to come, such as Andy Warhol’s Cat and Dogs exhibition in 1977. The project was ultimately left unfinished, for reasons that remain undocumented, and as Lidia Qattan notes in The Prophecy (1994), once Qattan departed, no one carried the work forward. A testament to the larger project he envisioned for this space is reflected in the archival work he began in those years, documenting his own trajectory as well as the artistic scene unfolding around him, although from the mid-1970s Qattan retreated from the institutional art scene, focusing on his studio and archive while continuing to exhibit in solo and group shows.

Later work 

Qattan inaugurated his last major solo exhibition, The Apple, in December 1975. It showcased thirty paintings exploring human instincts through the symbol of the apple and the significance of “beauty, pleasures and the violence of sex”, as described by the editor of the Kuwait Times in an article whose subtitle read, “thought-provoking theme lacking in appreciation.” The article drew attention to the uneasiness of the audience’s reception and the lack of “popular and official response” to Qattan’s “impressive paintings” (Kuwait Times, 22 December 1975). An eponymous book edited by Qattan (1975) suggested that he was aware that his works did not always receive the recognition he sought, and the book’s publication can be perceived as a practical step to mediate between his art and his audience. It brought together his biographical milestones, articles in English by Lidia Qattan that explicated Circulism and the meanings of The Apple series, images documenting the exhibition’s works, visitor comments from the exhibition’s livre d’or, press articles in Arabic and English, and caricatures that indicated the artist’s awareness of the distance between his philosophical ruminations and his audience’s cognitive frame of reference. This publication also advertised his next project, The Egg exhibition, which was begun in 1978 and planned for 1980, but only materialised in 2004, after Qattan’s passing.

Qattan’s artistic pace slowed noticeably in the 1980s, and his engagement with the art scene he had championed for twenty years gradually diminished—a decline attributed to deteriorating health and personal disappointments. This shift left a visible imprint on his work: the drama and satire of the 1960 and 1970s faded, as did his use of the grotesque, and the sharp social commentary once synonymous with his Circulism pieces by and large gave way to serene, contemplative portraits of nature, particularly trees.

During the 1990–1991 Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, Qattan did not leave the country—an experience that left deep traces across his paintings, personal writings, and archival documents. Among these is a typescript that recounts his first encounter with the Iraqi army on the day of the invasion where he was threatened at gunpoint. Although he did not produce any paintings forthrightly depicting the invasion during the occupation itself, a number of post-1991 works address the event, along with memorial projects such as coins, stamps, and sculptures (not all of which were completed), while his earlier work possibly anticipated its eventuality. Lidia Qattan’s The Prophecy of Khalifa Qattan (1994) proposes that a selection of his pre-invasion paintings produced between the 1960s and 1980s foreshadowed the brutality of the occupation, a prescience she attributed to the core focus and themes of Circulism—namely the ever morphing human nature. Among these works is The Deep Wound (1984), a painting that depicts a personal traumatic experience that Lidia Qattan reinterpreted in the light of the invasion: “In his self-portrait he reveals the shock and agony, the indignation and anger of his injured pride and presents with stirring force latent feelings of a finer humanity […] the whole background appears as a swelling frenzy of fast strokes of yellow, black and red paint in which symbols suggest the full sequence of the dramatic event […]” (Qattan, 1994).

Monument to women martyrs 

With the end of the invasion in 1991, the Kuwaiti state resumed its support for artistic production promoting different commemorative projects. The martyrs who died resisting the invading army became national symbols. Women martyrs were the subject of Qattan’s sole completed commemorative monument. Initially entitled Kuwaiti Women Giving and Sacrifice, upon its inauguration in 1993 it was renamed Kuwait Giving and Sacrifice and finally became known as Martyrs Monument. According to the Martyrs Bureau, of the ninety-two women who lost their lives, five died in the final days of Operation Desert Storm; their names were intended for inclusion in the monument but only appeared in Qattan’s archival records. This sculpture remains the only monument Qattan constructed among the various projects he envisioned, and it is likely the only monument dedicated to heroic women within the entire Arabian Peninsula.

Final years and personal museum

During his final years, Qattan’s works were exhibited in group shows across Kuwait, Syria, Qatar, Egypt, China, and the UAE. He remained committed until his death in 2003 to documenting and archiving the evolution of art and culture in his country and around the world. Qattan’s belief that artists have a responsibility to popularise art in the public sphere was most clearly realised through the transformation of his residence into a museum and archive. Dubbed the Mirror House by Lidia Qattan, the couple’s private home first became an art project in 1972, when she began covering the entire structure with mirror mosaics, and was subsequently opened to visitors in 1981. The project entered a new phase in 2005, with the ground floor and exterior façade comprising the Mirror House, while the first floor became the Khalifa and Lidia Qattan Art Museum. The institution houses Qattan’s artworks and archives, which include printed matter documenting the artistic and cultural activities of the Arabian Peninsula's cosmopolitan art scene, including state-sponsored exhibitions in Yemen, Bahrain, and Qatar from the 1970s to the 1990s, as well as events in India, Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Brazil. Qattan’s artworks and archives thus illuminate the extensive artistic exchanges that occurred across diverse geographies, enhancing an understanding of art as a social activity rather than an individual pursuit.

Bibliography

Al-Qadiri, Monira. “The Great Journey. Lidia Al-Qattan in conversation with Monira Al Qadiri”, Ibraaz, 28 May 2015.

Al-Shatti, Sulayman. “Interview with the artist Khalifa Qattan (1967)”, in Lenssen, Anneka, Sarah A. Rogers, and Nada Shabout, eds. Modern Art of the Arab World: Primary Documents. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2018.

Alviso-Marino, Anahi (in collaboration with Deema al-Ghunaim). « Un monument pour les femmes martyres: itinérances urbaines du travail artistique de Khalifa Qattan dans la ville de Koweït », Les cahiers d’EMAM (Études sur le Monde Arabe et la Méditerranée). N°33, 2020.

Alviso-Marino, Anahi, “A Monument Once Called ‘Kuwaiti Women, Giving and Sacrifice’”, in Nora Razian (ed.), Monumental Shadows. On museums, memory and the making of history, Art Jameel, Kaph Books, 2023.

Qattan, Lidia. The Artist Khalifa Qattan Introduces Circlism. English and Italian. Kuwait: Government Press, circa 1964.

Qattan, Khalifa, ed. The Apple. Kuwait, 1975.

Qattan, Lidia. The Prophecy of Khalifa Qattan. Kuwait Ministry of Information. Kuwait, 1994.

Salman, Abdulrasoul. Bidayat Masirat Al Fann Al Tashkili fil Kuwait [Beginning of the Kuwaiti Visual Art Journey]. Kuwait: Kuwait Government Press, 1975.

Salman, Abdulrasoul. Khalifa Al Qattan: Hayatuh wa ‘Amaluh [Khalifa Qattan: His Life and Works]. Kuwait, 2007.

Salman, Abdul Rasul, and Saleh al-Gharib. “Al-fanan Khalifa Qattan min ruwad al-haraka al-tashkiliyya fil Kuwait.” Manara Thaqafiyya Kuwaitiyya, 22, 2011.

Sowailem, Yahya. Ma’aradh Al Rabia’ Wa Bidayat Al Tashkeel fil Kuwait [The Spring Exhibitions and the Beginnings of Visual Art in Kuwait]. Kuwait, 2009.

[Unknown author]. “Khalifa Qattan’s Apple Exhibition.” Kuwait Times, December 22, 1975.

Zabal, Salim, and Oscar Matra, “Mualid al-Fann al-‘Arabi al-Mu’asir” [The birth of Contemporary Arab Art], al-‘Arabi Magazine, August 1973, Issue 177.

Further Readings

Al-Baqsami, Thuraya. Al-Marsam al-Hurr wa Rihlat 25 ‘Amaman, [The Free Atelier and a Journey Through 25 Years]. Media Department, Ministry of Information. Kuwait, 1986.

Al-Nakib, Farah. Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016.

Al-Qassemi, Sultan Sooud. “Toward Abstraction: The Case of Kuwait in the 1960s.” In Suheyla Takesh and Lynn Gumpert (eds.), Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s, Munich: Hirmer, 2020.

Alviso-Marino, Anahi, “Yemen’s Free Atelier: History and Context in the Arabian Peninsula”, in Anneka Lenssen, Sarah A. Rogers, Nada Shabout (eds.), Modern Art of the Arab World: Primary Documents, New York, The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), 2018

Downey, Anthony, ed. Future Imperfect: Cultural Institutions and Contemporary Art Practices in the Middle East. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2016.

Fullerton, Arlene, and Geza Fehervari, eds. Kuwait Arts and Architecture. Kuwait, 1995.

Khouri, Kristine. “Mapping Arab Art through the Sultan Gallery”. ArteEast, Spring 2014.

Muayad H. Hussain, Modern Art from Kuwait: Khalifa Qattan and Circulism, PhD thesis submitted to the Department of History of Art, University of Birmingham, 2012.

Rajab, Tareq. Tareq Sayid Rajab and the Development of Fine Art in Kuwait. Kuwait, 2001.

Multimedia resources

Khalifa Qattan website: https://www.khalifaqattan.com/

Muayad H. Hussain, Sheik of the Artists: Khalifa Qattan and Circulism (short documentary film 7’23”), 2010: http://www.sheikoftheartists.com/index.html

Alviso-Marino, Anahi, Monumenting (documentary film, 53’), Bad Manner’s, 2024.

Interview with the late visual artist Khalifa Al-Qattan, his wife Lidia and his daughter Jalila, via Al-Qurain Channel AlziadiQ8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7LdaEq1ek0&list=PPSV

The program (Springs) hosts the late visual artist Khalifa Al-Qattan and his wife Lydia on Al-Qurain Channel AlziadiQ8: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cmIE-2gCw4

Barjeel Art Foundation collection, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, Khalifa Qattan acquisition: https://www.barjeelartfoundation.org/collection/khalifa-al-qattan-ghar-hera/