This collection contains the archive of the Syrian artist Ahmed Madon (1941–1983).
Born in the city of Palmyra, Ahmed Madon began drawing as a teenager, at the age of 15 but did not go on to study art. Instead, he obtained a degree in commerce and economics from the University of Damascus in 1965. Through a registration card at the Lebanese University, we also know that he studied English literature there for at least one year in 1967. That same year, Madon was sent to Japan for further studies in statistics and computer science. During his stay, although he had not at that stage exhibited his work yet in Syria, he held a solo exhibition at Tokyo-based Gallery Konohana. Upon his return to Syria, he worked at the Ministry of State for Cabinet Affairs.
Materials within the archive tell us that Madon held his first exhibition in Syria in 1976 at Ornina Gallery. The following year, he began he was appointed to work at the Directorate of Fine Arts, where he undertook administrative work at various art institutions. This was swiftly followed up with the assignment to manage the Fine Arts Directorate in 1979. During this time, Madon was also appointed as a member of the Supreme Committee for Exhibitions and Collectibles for the Damascus Governorate, which was formed by the Ministry of Culture since 1979, and director of the Adham Ismail Center since 1979.
As far as his personal artistic activities are concerned, press clippings show that he held a solo exhibition in Bucharest, most likely in 1978, the same year as his exhibition in Costanza, Romania. He also exhibited at International Encounters for Contemporary Art at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1979 alongside works by other Syrian artists. Madon participated in the Seventh Kuwait Exhibition of Arab Artists in 1981 (he was a member of the Union of Arab Artists).
Madon’s oeuvre was characterized by an experimental boldness, especially in terms of painting techniques. He attributed the fact that he was well into his thirties when he finally publicly exhibited his artworks to a feeling of responsibility. For him, art was serious work that was not to be rushed. In terms of predominant themes, he was influenced by the Palmyrene civilization, with similarities drawn between the features of the faces in his paintings to those of Palmyrene statues. His use of earthy and sky colors also shows that he was influenced by the geography of that region. In addition, the structure of his painting is influenced by the overlapping architecture of the city of Maaloula, which he had been photographing since the 1960s.
This archive contains a total of 513 documents distributed as follows: Press Clippings (53) Official documents and correspondence (47) Drawings (18) Letters (2) Exhibitions (57) Photographs (328) Workshops Work in Britain (7) Writings (1).
The Press Clippings folder includes newspaper articles, most of which are in Arabic and some in English or French. The oldest dates to 1976, and the most recent to 2008 – coverage on Madon and his work continued after his death.
Official Documents and Correspondence comprises Madon`s academic certificates, from primary school (1952) through to his university studies (1965–1966) from the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Damascus. These include an important group of letters from the Ministry of Culture and National Guidance to Madon and/or his employers, containing decisions of assigning him to administrative positions in art institutions.
Two letters comprise the folder of this name, one of which was sent by Madon from Japan to his family. The difference between this file and that of Official Documents and Correspondence is the personal nature of these two letters.
Drawings includes two sets of work made by Madon as diary-like sketches, one of them consists drawings from 1979, inspired by his previous trip to Japan, and the second to 1980 during a training workshop on teaching art that took place in Britain. Materials related to this latter trip are found in a separate folder entitled `Workshop in Britain`.
The Exhibitions folder is a rich file that demonstrates the remarkable activity of Ahmed Madon despite his short artistic life due to his untimely death following an unfortunate accident in 1983. It includes eight collections of materials, including photographs, invitation cards and brochures, each associated with an exhibition, starting from 1976 and ending with a posthumous show in 1983. It is worth noting that this list does not include all of his exhibitions, as press clippings reveal other important presentations he was part of.
Photographs features eight groups of images (subfolders). Perhaps the most significant is that of images entitled `Syria by Madon`, which includes 151 photographs – most of them from the early 1960s – through which Madon documented archaeological and urban scenes from Syrian cities, in particular those of Damascus and the ruins of Palmyra. In addition to the documentary value of these images, they reveal Madon`s vision of local urban and human heritage, which we then see translated into his paintings.
Finally, in Writings, there is a single text by the critic and former professor at the Fine Arts Faculty, Rateb Al-Ghouthani. Most likely written in 1983 following the artist’s death, it includes a tribute to Madon and his art.
The importance of this archive lies in the insights it provides into the life and work of the late artist, who did not have much opportunity to exhibit due to his early death. It also provides cultural context to the art scene within Syria at the time through detailing the work of the Ministry of Culture and National Guidance in Syria, the Directorate of Fine Arts, and the Fine Arts Center (which is the Adham Ismail Center itself). Finally, the archive also shows the artist’s precision in his intentional preservation and documentation of his life and work – the archive shows the cohesion of his artistic biography, his insistence on artistic work, his involvement locally, and his attempts to engage in the Arab and international art scenes.