Description:

The archive collection of Syrian artist Abdullatif Al Smoudi comprises approximately 1,000 personal and official documents, photographs, exhibition materials, and newspaper clippings, many of which relate to his activities in the United Arab Emirates over a period of more than two decades. These documents span the period from the mid-1960s to his death in 2005.

This archive reveals the rich dual role played by artist Abdullatif Al Smoudi in both art management and art production. His presence in the UAE had a significant impact on his artistic career, and he contributed, along with his fellow Emirati artists, to the development of the visual arts movement through the activities of associations, participation in exhibitions, and the organization of the Sharjah Cultural Biennials in various disciplines.

Abdullatif Al Smoudi was born in 1948 in the city of Hama in central Syria. He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus, graduating in 1975, as indicated on his graduation certificate, which is included in the `Documents` file. He was a member of the Fine Arts Union since 1976 and of the General Union of Arab Artists since 1977. He moved to the United Arab Emirates in the late 1970s and worked as a teacher in its schools since the early 1980s. He was then appointed to work in the Department of Culture and Information in Sharjah, where his personal files indicate his involvement in various roles, including book fairs, Sharjah Theater Days, art organizations, and children’s workshops. He is also one of the founding members of the Emirates Fine Arts Society, established in 1980, according to press clippings included in a subfile titled `United Arab Emirates,` which contains coverage of various art events throughout Al Smoudi's stay there. Al Smoudi also served as curator of the Sharjah Biennial for several years, beginning in 1993.

The archive includes a rich collection of photographs. The file contains photographs from some of his solo exhibitions, such as the one in Syria in 1993, another in the Czech Republic in 1998, Morocco in 1998, and Vienna in 2000, as well as photographs from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus in the 1970s and others in Paris, Saudi Arabia, and Oman. He has a collection of photos at the Majlis Gallery in Sharjah, where he exhibited repeatedly, and another collection with Sheikh Sultan Al Qasimi (1939-) during the openings of exhibitions and art events, some of which bear witness to Al Smoudi's activity within the framework of his work at the Sharjah Art Museum from its inception until the artist's death in 2005. It also includes a number of documentary photographs taken by Al Smoudi of Hama's architectural landmarks in the late 1990s. The photographs also reveal his close relationship with fellow artists, including Omar Hamdi (MALVA) (1951–2015), Mustafa Ali (1956–), and Ahmad Moualla (1958–).

The `Miscellaneous Documents` file contains a small number of exhibition materials and invitations. One of them is an invitation to the first annual exhibition of Hama artists, which was held at the Shizer Hall in Hama in 1990 as a tribute to the Syrian artist Suhail al-Ahdab, featuring the works of sixty-five Hama artists. This exhibition reflects Al Smoudi's attachment to his hometown and the progress made by the city, which only a few years earlier had witnessed the `Hama events.` This file also holds a remarkable record of the Emirates Fine Arts Society, listing detailed statistics on its exhibitions from its founding in 1980 through 1990. It also includes a personal treasure—a handwritten notebook of Al Smoudi’s own poems, undated but full of his voice and character.

Alongside this notebook, the newspaper articles he collected throughout his artistic career, now kept in the `Press Clippings` file, reveal his broad interests: poetry, literature, and thought, as well as art journalism, criticism, and news about artists, art events, and art movements in Syria and the United Arab Emirates. The file also includes articles about exhibitions of female artists whose careers remain underdocumented, such as the Syrian Manour Khalas (date of birth unknown) and Aida Khalifa (1948-). We read about his winning of prominent art awards, including the gold medal at the Bangladesh Asian Art Biennial in 1995 and first prize at the Sharjah International Biennial for Fine Arts in 1997.

Abdullatif Al Smoudi's work focuses on an abstract language derived in form and technique from local Syrian motifs, particularly the craft of fabric printing in the city of Hama, but he places it in a modernist mold.