Death of Tareq Rajab mourned
A remarkable man of many talents
Kuwait’s eminent cultural, arts, archaeology pioneer Tareq Sayed Rajab (above), has died at the age of 81.
Born in 1935, Rajab was the first Kuwaiti to be sent abroad to study art and archaeology.
After his return from Britain, he was appointed as the first Director of the Department of Antiquities and Museums of Kuwait in 1958.
Rajab excavated for antiquities on the island of Failaka, and was head of public relations at the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC). (KUNA)
Kuwait mourns the death of Tareq Sayid Fakhry Al-Sayid Rajab, who passed away on the 26th of June, 2016 at the age of 81. A remarkable man of many talents, he was an artist, educator, photographer, author, designer, builder, and archaeologist. He is best known for establishing the magnificent Tareq Rajab Museum in 1980, with his wife, Jehan, and the Tareq Rajab Museum of Islamic Calligraphy in 2007. He and his wife also established and directed the New English School, the first English secondary school in Kuwait, in 1969.
The first Kuwaiti to be sent abroad to study art and archaeology, he met his future wife while he was a student in Great Britain and they married in 1955. Born to British parents in Brazil, well-traveled, adventurous Jehan shared many interests with Tareq Rajab and turned out to be his true soulmate. The enterprising couple left behind a rich legacy in the fields of art, archaeology, Islamic culture, heritage, and education. Jehan Rajab passed away on the fifth of April, 2015.
The Kuwait of Tareq Rajab’s youth was a small, walled desert town with a series of bustling harbors crowded with wooden sailing ships. While most of the boys spent their leisure time fishing and swimming, Tareq Rajab developed an interest in drawing and painting. This was most unusual at that time as art did not yet have any place in Kuwaiti society. In an interview with the Arab Times in 2001, when his book, “Tareq Sayid Rajab and the development of fine art in Kuwait” was published, he reflected on the events and twists of fate that made a dramatic impact on the course of his life.
“When I was attending Al Mubarakiya School in the forties and early fifties, Kuwait was just beginning to develop into a modern country. It was still a harsh desert environment, a practical society without luxuries and certainly without any tradition of drawing or painting,” he explained.
In fact, the simple sketches that Kuwaiti sailors drew of their favorite sailing vessels with charcoal on walls were some of the sole drawings that Rajab saw as a child. The only other examples of art to which he was exposed as a young boy were glass paintings of peacocks and gardens on imported cupboards from India in his family home, and hand written and illuminated manuscripts of the Holy Quran in his grandfather’s library. Rajab’s grandfather, Sayid Omar, was one of Kuwait’s first scholars and calligraphers as well as the first headmaster of Al Mubarakiya School, established in 1911. Tareq Rajab was destined to take after his grandfather in more ways than one.
A turning point in the history of art education in Kuwait, and in the life of Tareq Rajab, came during the academic year of 1952-53, when art was introduced into the local curriculum. “This came about because art was one of the subjects being taught in schools in Egypt and Palestine, and we were following their systems of education at the time,” he recalled.
So began an intensive year of study for Tareq Rajab who worked day and night to assemble an impressive body of work for his art teacher, Mujib Al Dos ary, a Kuwaiti, and Sherif Al Kha dhra, a Palestinian handicrafts instructor. The students’ artwork was displayed in an exhibition and Tareq Rajab won first prize. He was also awarded a government scholarship for a five-year degree course in the UK in art and education.
Thus on July 11, 1953, Tareq Rajab bid farewell to his family and travelled to what seemed like another world. Flying in an airplane for the first time was a shock and Rajab remembers each transit stop becoming ever more strange and different as his airplane landed first in Baghdad,
then Beirut and Rome en route to London.
The contrast between Kuwait and his new home couldn’t have been greater. As he wrote in his book, “Kuwait with its dusty roads and onestory sun baked houses was a peaceful and clean place with no rubbish in sight and no motorcars to pollute the air. There was just the vast desert and the limitless waters of the Gulf with grand old dhows gracing the old protected harbors or sailing down the Gulf spreading their great white sails on their way south to distant lands beyond our limited horizon. Suddenly I was thrust into the lush countryside of Oxfordshire where I lived in a wonderful pseudo Victorian house with strange people and where I had to learn a different way of life and speak in a different language. I was completely lost at first and felt homesick for the first time in my life.”
The young artist’s thirst for learning, however, soon drowned out his homesickness. Whereas other less motivated individuals might have been overwhelmed by such challenges, Tareq Rajab soaked up the skills and knowledge offered him with as much enthusiasm as he soaked himself in the rain while exploring the woods and rolling hills on long walks.
A sketch in oil of Brazier’s Park, where he lived, is featured in his book, as are landscapes of the surrounding countryside. The old mansion was a meeting place for writers and artists and here he met many kind and interesting people who not only helped him master the English language but opened up whole new horizons of concepts, ideas, and thought. “I was adaptable and ready to absorb and I learned so much, often without even realising that I was learning,” he said.
In the art college, although he lacked the other students’ wide-ranging background in art, he was still expected to keep up with them and he was strictly schooled in a variety of skills and techniques. “Before beginning to draw the human form, for example, we had to learn anatomy, and this, I believe, is as it should be,” he remarked. “Nowadays students in art colleges are given free reign to express themselves and to do what they want, but what good is that if they don’t understand the basic techniques.”
According to Tareq Rajab, the other major turning point in his life came during his course of study, when he met and married his wife, Jehan. “She was my guardian angel, and helped me a great deal with my work and when I felt frustrated and discouraged she forced me forward and gave me great encouragement,” he wrote in his book. “We have been inseparable ever since and have helped each other to shape our lives…”
When the Raj abs returned to Kuwait in 1958, Tareq Rajab worked as a teacher for a year before joining the Department of Antiquities and Museums, eventually becoming its Director. In this capacity he worked tirelessly to preserve the traditional buildings of old Kuwait town. Unfortunately, many of his farsighted proposals were rejected, but among his triumphs are the preservation of Bayt Al Bader, the large courtyard house next to Sadu House; some of the old gates from the city wall, and Sheikh Ahmed Al Jaber’s summer home on Failaka Island. Tareq and Jehan Rajab worked with friends, workers, and an archaeological team to turn the latter into an ethnological museum.
The Raja bs spent the winter and spring months of the years 1960-64 on Failaka Island, excavating the Greek and Bronze Age sites with the Danish expedition. Tareq Rajab had spent a year in Denmark previously, studying museum techniques. The Raja bs were present when many remarkable finds were made on Failaka, including a stone tablet that positively identified Failaka as the island of Ikarus, an ancient Greek colony associated with Alexander the Great.
The 1960s were also the time of many trips of exploration throughout Europe, Central Asia, India, Indonesia, and the Arab world, often undertaken by car with their young sons Ziad and Nadr and daughter Nur. It was during these family trips that the couple began collecting artifacts and photographing monuments, people, their customs and costumes, everything they believed could be used and exhibited in a museum.
Tareq Rajab often carried along his sketch pad and pencils and enjoyed sketching some of the people they met. Included in his book and on display in the museum are some watercolor studies of women wearing traditional Middle Eastern dress. Besides recording the details in the costumes, Rajab also captured the expressions of his models, such as the innocent demeanor of a young Bethlehem bride or the captivating gaze of a veiled woman from Yemen. Jehan developed a particular interest in ethnic jewelry and traditional dress and went on to research and write about these and other subjects while Tareq Rajab became an expert on antique Quranic manuscripts.
In 1980 the Raja bs opened the Tareq Rajab Museum in Jabriya. The first museum of Islamic art and culture in the region, its collection of Arab and Islamic art and artifacts is world-renowned and was exclusively collected by Tareq and Jehan Rajab.
Tareq Rajab was also an avid photographer and practiced this craft for many years. He published his photographs of Kuwait in several large volumes which serve not only as a valuable documentary of the physical development of the country but also as first-rate collections of beautiful photographs.
In 2001, the Raja bs opened the Dar El Cid Exhibition Halls near the Tareq Rajab Museum. The striking Yemeni style complex was designed and built by Tareq Rajab to serve as a venue for hosting exhibitions and lectures. These events proved very popular with Kuwaitis and expatriates alike.
Tareq Rajab had long been collecting antique Quranic manuscripts and other examples of Islamic calligraphy. In March 2007 the Tareq Rajab Museum of Islamic Calligraphy opened its doors to the public in stunning premises also designed by Tareq Rajab opposite the New English School in Jabriya. The museum houses some of the world’s finest examples of calligraphy with emphasis on historical pieces, including works of unsurpassed beauty by some of the Ottoman sultans. It is the only museum of its kind in the entire Arab world and stands as testament to the extraordinary vision of Tareq Rajab.
With so many varied activities and commitments, Tareq Rajab sometimes lamented that he was unable to devote as much time to his art as he would have liked. But no matter how busy he was, he never neglected one longstanding artistic tradition, and that was to paint a special painting for his wife every year for her birthday. When a memorial service for Jehan Rajab was held at the New English School after her death in 2015, a beautifully-presented collection of prints of some of these paintings was given to each guest, a fitting tribute to both a man and wife who had dedicated their lives to culture and art.
The legacy of Tareq and Jehan Rajab, and fond memories of them as talented, productive, creative individuals who were always kind and humble, will long live on.