Yousef Ahmad

Abstract

Yousef Ahmad, born in 1955 in Doha, Qatar, is considered one of the pioneering figures of modern and contemporary art in Qatar and the Gulf region. His lifelong passion for experimentation with a wide range of media, including oil and acrylic on canvas or panel, silkscreen paint on board, and watercolour on paper, ultimately led him to create his unique paper made from locally grown Qatari palm trees. Ahmad has developed his innovative style of Hurufiyya calligraphy in which Arabic letters are individually manipulated to highlight the aesthetics of their abstract arrangements, Islamic culture, and Arab heritage. In his large-scale artwork, Ahmad uses Arabic letters more as shapes than as signifiers. Ahmad, together with Mohammed Ali Abdulla and Hassan al-Mulla, founded a group called The Three Friends in the mid-1970s and, 10 years later, co-founded the Friends of the Fine Art Society. Ahmad is a member of Qatar Award Jury and of Hand Papermaking International Board of Advisors. He currently serves as Senior Advisor at the Cultural Advisor Office, Qatar Foundation in Doha, Qatar.

Biography​

Yousef Ahmad is considered a pioneer for his significant contribution to the evolution of modern and contemporary art in Qatar. Observing the socio-economic, cultural, artistic, and historical developments his country witnessed during the 1970s and 1980s, Ahmad set upon himself the responsibility, as an art advisor and educator, to document the development of Qatar's art scene.

Yousef Ahmad was born in 1955 into a family of three sisters and two brothers. Ahmad, along with artists such as Jassim al-Zaini, Hassan al-Mulla, Wafika Sultan Saif al-Essa, Saif al-Kuwari, Mohammed al-Kuwari, Majid al-Mislimani, and Mohammed Ali Abdulla, was among the first generation of Qatari artists to study overseas. The Ministry of Education began to offer scholarships to talented candidates to study in Iraq and Egypt, as well as in Italy, France, and the United States of America.

Ahmad graduated from the Faculty of Art Education, Helwan University, Cairo, with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and Education in 1976. He studied under Gazbia Sirry, Youssef Siedeh, Hamdi Khamis, and Dr. Mahmoud al-Bassyouni. Upon his return to his country, Ahmad worked as an artistic education orientation officer in the Ministry of Education and later headed the Department of Fine Arts in the Ministry of Information, where he organised his first exhibition at the Qatar National Museum Hall in 1977. Ahmad's articles about art schools, art criticism, and art in Qatar, as well as critiques of exhibitions of Qatari artists, began to appear in the daily newspaper Gulf Times and the Ministry of Information's monthly Doha Magazine.

With a keen interest in conveying art to the public, Ahmad and his colleagues, Mohammed Ali Abdulla and Hassan al-Mulla from the Ministry of Information, established a group called The Three Friends in the mid-1970s. The art scene in Qatar during the 1970s and 1980s was flourishing thanks to the active involvement of schools and governmental and non-governmental institutions, as well as the establishment of cultural departments, such as the one at al-Jasrah Cultural and Social Club in 1972 and the Cultural Center in 1976.

Independence in 1971, along with the accession of a new Emir, His Excellency Sheikh Khalifa Bin Hamad Al Thani, brought about dramatic changes to the benefit of the fledgling art scene in Qatar. Policymakers and educators affiliated with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Information focused on intellectual, cultural, and artistic development, laying the groundwork for establishing Qatar as a regional centre of excellence in the arts. At the local level, the Ministry of Education began establishing more primary and secondary schools, and later, in 1981, the Department of Artistic Education at Qatar University was established, laying the foundations for comprehensive school curricula that valued artistic education. Such initiatives sought to raise awareness among the Qatari population of the need for artistic knowledge and training, while encouraging contemporary talent to engage in artistic activities by featuring their work in local and international exhibitions.

In addition, the staging of individual exhibitions in Qatar by several visiting Arab artists broadened the horizons of Qatari artists and provided opportunities for dialogue on creativity. These Arab artists included Salah Taher (1976), Mohammed al-Qadi (1977), Khalid al-Naeb (1982), Sakhr Farzan (1982), Hessein al-Jibali (1983), Mansour al-Badaoui (1984), Ali Ghaddaf (1984), Abdalhadi Shella (1985), Kamal Boullata (1985), Abderrasoul Sliman (1985), Wafaa al-Sabbagh (1985), Badi al-Tawit (1986), Adel al-Mesri (1986), and Rashid Diyab (1987).

In the early 1980s, as a member of the Arab League Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ALESCO), Ahmad was assigned to conduct a study of the fine arts (modern art) in Qatar. Witnessing these exhibitions and other artistic activities in Qatar since their inception and noting the absence of any relevant art criticism about them, along with his own research, prompted him to write his book al-Funoon at-Tashkeeliyyah al-Mu'aasirah fee Qatar (Contemporary Fine Arts in Qatar) (1986). In this book, Ahmad documented several pioneering contemporary artists and identified the institutions and organisations actively involved in the development of the fine arts in Qatar.

In 1982, Ahmad travelled to the United States, where he earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from Mills College in Oakland, California. Following his return to Qatar, from 1983 to 2004, Ahmad taught art appreciation, the principles of drawing, and art history at Qatar University, where he met and taught His Excellency Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali Al Thani. Sharing an avid love for art with H. E. Sheikh Hassan, Ahmad has played an instrumental role in assembling the variety of artwork that constitute the major collections of Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art and Lusail Museum. Ahmad has also served as Director of both these museums from 1994 to 2008. He took part in the artist residency program, which was held in Madinat Khalifa, Qatar, in 1995.

In the mid-1980s, Ahmad was one of a group of artists, including Abderrasoul Sliman, Hassan al-Mulla, Mohammed Khamis, and Fouad al-Mgharbal, whose meeting during the Exhibit of Abderrasoul Sliman at a hall in the Sheraton Hotel in Doha resulted in the formation of a group called The Friends of the Fine Art Society. The aim of this group was to foster artistic development in the region by organising travelling exhibitions across the GCC countries, facilitating connections between artists and their audiences, and highlighting the uniqueness of Arab art.

Ahmad's artistic journey underwent various phases. As a young child, his innate talent was revealed when he began drawing on the walls of his home with charcoal left over from his mother's cooking. Also, he initially experimented with wax, cardboard, and black-and-white engraving on glass. Like his contemporaries Jassim al-Zaini, Salman al-Malik, Hassan al-Mulla, Ali Sharif, Mohammed al-Jaidah, Mohammed Ali Abdulla, Wafika Sultan Saif al-Essa, Ahmad's initial paintings, such as Popular Tailor(1973), Demolished Houses(1975), Nets Restorer (Djij) (1975), Local Coffee Shop(1988), were realistic, documenting the Qatari environment (including the sea, desert, landscape, and dhow industry) and the customs and traditions of local people while going about their everyday lives. However, following his interaction with the atelier of Shakir Hassan Al Said (1925–2004) during his participation in the First al-Wasiti Festival in Baghdad in 1974, Ahmad began to conceive new artistic possibilities. Similarly, Ahmad's interaction with the ateliers of the renowned Egyptian illustrator Hussein Bicar (1913–2002), and Youssef Siedeh (1922–1994) enriched his artistic education and his approach to the arts. Ahmad's academic training, together with his exposure to such stimulating influences, ignited his passion for broadening his experimentation with different media and techniques, moving on from a realistic approach toward an abstract treatment of Arabic letters.

Ahmad, through his manipulation of Arabic letters, was able at times to capture Islamic architectural and cultural elements, and at other times to highlight the aesthetic forms and shapes of the letters themselves. Initially, the letters in his paintings formed words in various scripts (such as naskh, thuluth, Riq'a, and Farsi) legible to the viewer. However, after his continuous experimentation with the Arabic letter as a shape rather than a signifier, they became abstracted; while still individually recognisable, together they no longer conveyed any distinct meaning. Ahmad has developed a unique, innovative calligraphy style in which combinations of letters are transformed into abstract signs that, in turn, manifest abstract arrangements.

Ahmad's fascination with paper grew from his early childhood, when he used to play with paper planes. Later in his life, he travelled to Japan, Thailand, Nepal, and India, calling himself ‘crazy about paper’ because he was always exploring locally made papers.

In his large-scale artwork, Ahmad depicts Arabic letters in their various shapes, with a particular focus on the construction of his composition. Ahmad's constant experimentation with a variety of media, starting with oil, acrylic, and mixed media on canvas or panel, and later silkscreen paint on board and watercolour on paper, led him to create his unique palm leaf paper made from locally grown Qatari palm trees. In his works, The Letter Eco(2011) and The Third Dimension Mosaic, (2014), Ahmad engages freely and spontaneously with the surface and the large space within his black wooden frame through this locally created medium and Hurufiyya. In fact, his recent work inFull Moon Love Letters(2013), The Dancing Letters(2013), and The Third – Dimension Mosaic (2014) reflects Ahmad's complete mastery in deploying both elements together: the handmade Qatari palm leaf paper and the aesthetically shaped letters.

His exhibition Yousef Ahmad: Story of Ingenuity, on show from 11 November 2014, to 28 March 2015, at Qatar Museums Gallery in Katara (Qatar) showcased a selection of the most striking artwork from his early career in the 1970s. The show highlighted three phases in Ahmad's artistic journey, from early oil paintings, including his historic depiction of al-Zubarah Fort, to mixed-media calligraphic artwork, and finally to innovative experimentation with media such as handmade paper and an abstract style.

Ahmad believes that an Arab artist should never lose sight of three themes in creating his work. The first is to relate to the forces of influence and interaction of the popular environment. The second is to foster the heritage and traditions of his forbears and civilisation. The third is to confront in his work the realities of life and events in the world, no matter how shocking or unpleasant. In his artistic collage Lebanon Burns and in Crying for Sarajevo 1 and 2 (1995), Ahmad sought to articulate a collective cause against remaining indifferent to such catastrophes. In his artwork al-Umoumah (Motherhood), Ahmad employs dark, warm colours, while his composition contrasts sharply drawn lines and triangles with a circular, egg-shaped mass. This work depicts the intimate moments of love and kinship between a mother and her child and ultimately reveals the artist's intrinsic feelings vis-à-vis the mother and motherhood as a subject.

Ahmad uses both primary and secondary colours, and at times, cold and warm colours are harmoniously nuanced, while at other times, they are distinctly contrasted. Earth colours such as light brown, pale yellow, beige, and orange, which represent the Eastern environment, as well as other colours such as green, gold, and blue inspired by Islamic culture, remain predominant in his work. He skilfully manipulates tones and shades of colours, which impart to his work a unique and deeply felt spirituality. To execute al-Zubara (1993), a commission by His Excellency Sheikh Hassan, Ahmad worked with high-quality Holland oil paints to develop a specific range of colours as close as possible to those of his natural environment.

​In his recent artwork, Ahmad, inspired by his local environment, makes extensive use of earth colours, such as dust and sand. Ahmad remains committed, if not determined, to using these local media to highlight local traits in abstraction and to present his country and aspects of Arab identity in a contemporary way.

Ahmad was one of the first Qatari artists who joined al-Jasrah Cultural and Social Club (founded in 1960), taking part in its permanent exhibition in 1972. He also exhibited his work at the Three Friends Exhibition in 1977, 1978 and 1980; the Cairo Biennials in 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990 and 1992; the Friends of Fine Art Exhibitions of GCC countries from 1985 to 1990; the First International Festival of Fine Art in Baghdad in 1986 and 1988; the first collective Exhibition at al-Ahli Sports Club in 1986, and Ankara First International Euro-Asian Arts Biennial, Turkey in 1986 and 1988. Ahmad's first exhibition, held at the entrance of his home, dates back to 1963.

Ahmad has won several regional and international awards and honours, and has widely exhibited at art fairs and biennials, gaining him international recognition. His works can be found in private collections including Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali Al Thani, and others in Mexico, Switzerland, Sultanate of Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, United States of America; the Jordanian Museum for Modern Arts; the International Museum of Engravings, Asilah, Morocco; the British Museum, United Kingdom; and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar.

Ahmad has served as an art advisor for many art galleries in the Arab World. He is a member of the Qatar Award Jury and Hand Papermaking International Board of Advisors; he currently serves as Senior Advisor at the Cultural Advisor Office, Qatar Foundation, in Doha, Qatar.

Bibliography

Ahmad, Yousef. Full Moon Love Letters. Photographed and designed by Mahmoud ChamsEddin Abbo. Dubai: PiuPlus Design, 2013.

Ahmad, Yousef.The Dancing Letters. Photographed and designed by Mahmoud ChamsEddin Abbo. Dubai: PiuPlus Design, 2013.

Ahmad, Yousef. The Third – Dimention Mosaic. Photographed and designed by Mahmoud ChamsEddin Abbo. Dubai: PiuPlus Design, 2014.

Ahmad, Yousef. Yousef Ahmad. French Translation by Dr. Farid Zahi, English Translation by Dr. Shaker Hassan, English edited by Maha Abdel-Moneim Abdel Maaboud Dubai: PiuPlus Design, 2007.

Ali, Wijdan.Modern Islamic Art: Development and Continuity. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.

Interview with the artist Yousef Ahmad conducted by Samia Touati. 12 May 2014. Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar.

Interview with the artist Yousef Ahmad conducted by Yasser Mongy. 12 November 2014. Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar.

Shabout, Nada M. Modern Arab Art: Formation of Aesthetics. Florida: University Press of Florida, 2007.

Touati, Samia. Email Exchanges and conversations with the Artist Youssef Ahmad. 16 - 26 March 2014, January and February 2015.

Swalif: Qatari Art between Memory and Modernity. Exhibition Catalogue, 14 August – 29 October 2011, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar. Doha: Qatar Museums Authority, Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2011.

Swalif: Qatari Art between Memory and Modernity. The Artists Talk: Jassim al-Zaini, Yousef Ahmad, Salman al-Malik, Hassan al-Mulla, Faraj Daham, Ali Hassan, Mohammed al-Atiq. Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, 2011. Duration: 2:46. Accessed February 16, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1d_ZkDKraA

Swalif: Qatari Art between Memory and Modernity. In Conversation 2: On Perceptions of Artists. A dialogue between Yousef Ahmed and Wafika Sultan Saif al-Essa, moderated by Fatima Mostafawi, Assistant Curator at Mathaf. Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, 2011. Duration: 1:05:09. Accessed February 16, 2015.