Mathaf Museum in Doha Opens Exhibition on Iraqi Modern Art
The Mathaf Museum in Doha has opened an exhibition exploring over seven decades of Iraqi modern art, Qatar's state news agency QNA reported.
The exhibition, titled 'What Lingers in the Artist's Mind,' showcases the development of a distinctly Iraqi artistic language through the story of the Baghdad Modern Art Group, Qatar News Agency (QNA) said in a statement.
The exhibition features paintings, sculptures, sketches, photographs, and archival documents, organized across 17 thematic sections, and runs until February 6, 2027.
It explores Mesopotamian heritage, Islamic traditions, folklore, and the intersection of contemporary life with international modernist ideas.
The Baghdad Modern Art Group was founded in 1951 by Jewad Selim and Shakir Hassan Al Said, and approached modernism as a space for experimentation.
The exhibition draws extensively from Mathaf's collection of Iraqi art and includes works from the 1940s to the present day.
Nada Shabout, the exhibition curator, said: "The exhibition places artworks into conversation with sketches, photographs, archives and the gaps that remain within the historical record."
The exhibition is part of Qatar Museums' Fall/Winter 2026 programme, highlighting Qatar's role as a crossroads of cultures and ideas.
Background
The Mathaf Museum, or Arab Museum of Modern Art, is a leading cultural institution in the Middle East, dedicated to modern and contemporary Arab art.
The museum's collection includes over 6,000 works of art from across the Arab world, making it one of the most significant collections of its kind.
