This week’s focus is on Kuwait during the late 1960s which commemorates a gallery and art scene that became the foundations for arts education and development in the Gulf. These photos emerged after conversations with Ms. Farida Sultan, Director of the Sultan Gallery.
The gallery opened in 1969 by her siblings Ghazi and Najat Sultan on Fahad Al Salem Street in the Qibla district. Their mission was to feature Arab and local artists. Enclosed here are images of their very first exhibition on the 25th March,1969 featuring paintings, etchings and gouaches by Essam El Said (Iraqi) and Munira AlKazi (Kuwaiti) under the patronage of H.E. Shaikh Abdulla Al- Jaber Al-Sabah.
Artists, eager to congregate together and discuss art and society met at either the Sultan Gallery or Marsam Al Hur (The Free Atelier.) The Marsam Al Hur, founded by the Ministry of Education in 1960, provided full time salaries to over thirty artists. The Emirati artist Abdul Qader Al Rais not only frequented the Marsam but also exhibited internationally with these artists.
This is but a small preview of the major photo archive of Sultan Gallery and their legacy that began in the 1960s. Stay tuned for more photos to come!