Tareq Rajab: a pioneer with paint and palette
DAI opens 22nd season with Dr Ziad Rajab lecture
By Cinatra Fernandes
Arab Times Staff
KUWAIT CITY, Sept 27: Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah (DAI) opened its 22nd Annual Cultural Season with a lecture by Dr Ziad Rajab on his late father Tareq Sayid Rajab titled “Pioneer with Paint and Palette: Life of Tareq Rajab” at the Yarmouk Cultural Centre, Monday evening.
Bader Al Baijan, President of Friends of DAI Steering Committee, stated, “As has been our custom in the last few seasons, the DAI is pleased to begin our lecture series with a Tareq Rajab lecture. However this year, we begin on a sad note for Tareq Sayid Rajab whom this lecture is dedicated, passed away in June this year.”
He continued to describe Tareq Rajab as a renaissance man — artist, archaeologist, educator, photographer, author, designer and builder who together with his wife Jehan, established the New English School in 1969 followed by the Tareq Rajab museum in 1980 and more recently in 2007, the Tareq Rajab Museum of Islamic calligraphy.
Dr Ziad Rajab is the director of the New English School and a Tareq Rajab Museum board member. In addition to being a human resource specialist, he is involved in the arts and has non-professional certifications in book-binding, illumination, portraiture, oil painting and pottery as well as being an accomplished flautist. In speaking on the life of his father, he elaborated on his background and the factors in life that created the man he was — intelligent, hardworking, passionate and obsessive about achieving things.
Tareq Rajab was born in 1934 in his father’s house near souk Mubarakiya which was located between Sharq and Qibla. He lived next door to his grandfather who was the first Principal of the first formal school of Kuwait, the Mubarakiya school, founded in 1911. The passing of his father when he was around 5-6 years old, greatly impacted Tareq and he was brought up under the watchful eye of his mother and his grandfather. His older brother Farhan was also a strong father figure in his early life.
Tareq Rajab was afflicted with health issues that meant a lot of time spent at hospitals and indoors for him. Apart from his natural inclination towards books, being restricted indoors for long spells was also an important factor in exposing him to books which helped develop his personality.
He was schooled at the Mubarakiya school and he spent a lot of time in the library there where he acquired an interest in history and geography through the writings of early Arab travellers. He also frequented a bookshop owned by Muhamed alRuwaiyeh who became fond of him as it was rare for young boys to come in to the store to borrow books.
Education
Dr Ziad Rajab shared that his father, all through his education and all through his career, had always had mentors. It was one such mentor who on discovering his love for old books and manuscripts encouraged him to travel to Baghdad to buy some and bring them back to Kuwait. He was given Rs 100 provided with documentary evidence that he was over 18 years old. He set off to Basra with a taxi service and then took the train to Baghdad, amazed by greenery and rivers that were unlike the scenery of Kuwait back then. He managed to go to stores and bought books. He took the boat from southern Iraq back to Kuwait. It was this journey which Tareq described as ‘the great adventure of his life’ that was the birth of his collecting.
In 1952, while he was in the final year of his secondary school in Mubarakiya, teachers were the new mentors and influencers in his life who supported and steered him in the direction that his life took. At the encouragement of his teachers, he submitted some of his paintings to an interschool art competition and won the first prize. The first prize was a scholarship to study art which made him the first ever Kuwaiti to travel to the West to do so.
In July 11, 1953, he landed in London and then proceeded to Brazier’s Park where he spent six months perfecting his English. He had a natural affinity and attraction to British culture and was very enthusiastic about learning and being there. He then went to Eastbourne College to study art and was taken under the wing of a well known British artist, lithographer and printmaker Edward Taverner, who not only passed along those techniques and skills but opened Tareq’s eyes to Islamic art. It was also at Eastbourne that he met his wife Jehan and began a lifelong partnership in 1955.
Diary
On account of his arthritic ailment, there were periods of his life where he could not walk. Dr Ziad read out extracts from his father’s diary at a time when he was in hospital, that shed light on his resilience and positive outlook on life.
After coming back to Kuwait, Tareq Rajab first started teaching art at one of the new model schools before being appointed to the Department of Antiquities where he quickly became the Director of Antiquities and Museums. He established the first National Museum in Kuwait and the Arabian Gulf region at the Palace of Sheikh Abdullah AlJabir Al-Sabah and later worked alongside the Danish expedition in Failaka and was heavily involved in the excavations.
Dr Ziad elaborated on Tareq’s work on the Failaka Archaeological Museum, built on a limited budget and with his very own hands as well as the establishment of the Ethnographical Museum of Failaka.
Dr Ziad Rajab
Tareq Rajab remained Director of Antiquities and Museums until 1967 and then moved on to personal projects, starting the New English School to give Kuwaiti students access to British education. The school opened with seven students and nine teachers but quickly expanded.
Tareq and his wife Jehan were avid travellers and had picked up a horde of artefacts during the course of their travels. They also employed other methods of collecting through auctions and dealers. He established the Tareq Rajab Museum in 1980 that displayed
Dr Ziad Rajab delivers a lecture on his father Tareq Sayid Rajab
A section of audience
manuscripts and metalwork and which later expanded to have a collection of jewellery, textiles, costumes.
Dr Ziad Rajab concluded his lecture by revealing that his father’s greatest talent was his art. “He was a very good painter. Rajab used to spend a lot of his time in the 60s and 70s painting”, he commented while sharing images of his lithographs and paintings. Tareq Rajab was also a passionate photography and took thousands of photographs of old Kuwait and an amazing photos documenting his pilgrimage of Makkah.
A photo from the event
The DAI’s 22nd cultural season will run through May 2017 and will include lectures, concerts, educational opportunities, workshops, cultural excursions, film screenings, theatrical productions, and other special events. The lecture series will feature top scholars and intellectuals from around the world and the DAI music circle will continue to present a blend of musicians from all over the Arab region that perform local and traditional folklore music along with international performances. For more information, visit darmuseum.org.kw