Biography
Born in the capital Amman in 1938, Mohanna Durra is a pioneer in Jordan's modern art movement. Internationally recognised for his portraits, Durra is also one of the first painters in Jordan to experiment with abstract compositions during the early 1960s.
Durra's artistic interests began during childhood when the artist recalls being reprimanded at school for drawing during religious studies classes. Fascinated by faces and figures, Durra showed an early interest in figurative work, suggesting the artist's later passion for portraiture. At the age of nine, his father sent the aspiring artist to study at the studio of George Aleef (1887–1971), a former officer in the Tsarist army and a traditional painter who lived in Amman then. Later, in the 1950s, Durra met another European artist living in the Jordanian capital. This relationship inspired Durra's longstanding fascination with Dutch painting, particularly using light to infuse a composition with movement and dramatic energy. A third influence on Durra's aesthetic sensibility can be traced back to 1954 when he enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma and dedicated himself to studying Italian renaissance and baroque artists.
After graduating from the Academy in 1958, Durra returned to Amman, where he taught art, first in elementary school and later at the Teacher's Training College. At the college, Durra formed a formative friendship with an Italian violinist and self-taught painter. The comradery influenced Durra's understanding of the connection between music and visual abstraction, a formal relationship often noted by his international and local critics.
After a few years in Amman, Durra returned to Rome in 1961, where he received a post at the Jordanian embassy. The position launched a long career in government service, including positions as the director general of the Department of Culture and Art in Amman (1977–1983) and the director for Cultural Affairs of the League of Arab States in Tunis (1980–1981), in addition to residencies in Rome, Cairo, and Moscow.
Despite nearly four decades of government service, Durra continued to practice and contribute to establishing an infrastructure for visual arts in Jordan. As a child interested in art in Amman during the 1940s, there were few opportunities for formal training with the exception of individual artists who held informal classes in their home studios. Durra is considered a member of the first generation of Jordanian artists to receive formal training after being awarded government scholarships to study abroad. Upon their return, most of these artists worked as art teachers in elementary schools and later headed the newly emerging art departments in Jordan's universities. Durra established the Jordan Institute of Arts and Music in 1970 and served as its director from 1970 to 1980, when it closed.
Durra's greatest accomplishment, however, is in the breadth of his work. Early in his career, he established himself as a portrait painter. Working in oil, watercolour, and ink, Durra captured a range of subjects from anonymous peasants and bedouins to Amman's society personalities. He is most recognised for his portraits of clowns. Depicted in an expressionist style, these works on paper are characterised by the use of bright, saturated colours and visible, fluid brushstrokes.
