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DHAHRAN: There’s a new exhibition in town. Some of the artists you know, and some you don’t — which is exactly the point. 

The works of more than four dozen pioneering women from across the Arab world are on display — some for the first time ever — in “Horizon in Their Hands: Women Artists from the Arab World (’60s–’80s),” which opened Sept. 18 at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra) in Dhahran and runs until Feb. 14. The show contains 70 works by artists from 11 countries — ��������, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria, Iraq, the UAE, and Bahrain. 

“The idea behind the title was to give back agency to a generation of women who have been overlooked,” the show’s curator, Rémi Homs, tells Arab News. “We also wanted to see this relationship between arts and craft as a horizon for further research. And we wanted to have this idea of hands — something handmade.” 

The exhibition is a collaboration between Ithra and Barjeel, a UAE-based foundation established by Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi in 2010. Of the 50 artists featured, four are from ��������: Mona Al-Munajjed, Fatima Hassan Assiri, Mounirah Mosly, and Safeya Binzagr, regarded as the mother of Saudi modern art. Both Al-Munajjed and Binzagr are the subjects of an “In Focus” section of the show, along with the late Tunisian artist Safia Farhat, and the Wissa Wassef Art Center in Egypt, which preserves hand-weaving traditions. 

Al-Munajjed’s works, including “Traditional Saudi Door” and “Minaret of Mosque” — both from the mid-Eighties — weave together personal memory and collective history, capturing intimate domestic scenes and broader social narratives of Jeddah. Using the fiery batik dyeing technique, she blends vibrant colors and subtle textures, creating visual stories that feel both deeply personal and historically resonant. 

Assiri, the mother of renowned artists Ahmed and Jamila Mater, showcases an untitled acrylic-on-wood panel piece — a complex composition that intertwines colors and motifs, employing the feminist-centric traditional Saudi art form, Al-Qatt Al-Asiri — which women historically used to decorate their homes with specific shapes, colors, and markings, and is listed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. 

“The Young Woman,” by Mosly, exemplifies the late artist’s ability to blend portraiture with broader social and cultural themes, while Binzagr’s lithography etchings, intimate and bold, captured the spirit of Saudi life, blending figurative storytelling with a modernist sensibility that continues to resonate. Her 1980 work “Desert Ship,” depicting camels in front of a tent, is particularly striking. 

The show is split into thematic sections, including “Depicting a Rapid Modernization,” “Alternative Pathways: Self-Taught Artists,” “Revisiting Islamic Art Legacies,” “New Media Experimentation,” “Reclaiming Local Craft Practices,” and “Al-Qatt Al-Asiri.” 

Many of the works carry partial or unknown histories. Homs cites a brass piece by Egyptian artist Atyat El-Ahwal (1989), initially listed only by name and date.  

“We basically had no information about her,” he says. “We included her work because we wanted to focus not just on the more well-known names,” he said. Further research — and input from visitors and experts — helped uncover her full name, dates of birth and death (1919–2012), and even a video likely recorded in the 1970s found on YouTube, all allowing her work to be contextualized in a broader history.  

Everyday materials appear in surprising ways — transformed into abstract compositions, for example — and embroidery is reimagined as narrative painting. Henna recurs across many works; Homs highlighted Emirati pioneer Najat Makki, saying: “Henna was an accessible part of everyday life.”  

He praises the artists’ innovative and creative use of available materials. “Something that you cannot see in history books from the West, but it’s something very important and, in my opinion, very groundbreaking,” he says. 

And Homs is hopeful that the exhibition will lead to further revelations of artworks by women in the Arab world. 

“Yes, we are seeing 70 different works by 50 different artists—22 of whom are still alive,” he says. “But it’s the tip of the iceberg. I’d say that we are seeing maybe the first 5 percent of artists we need to discover.” 

RIYADH: At the Kingdom’s inaugural Cultural Investment Conference, which opened in Riyadh on Sept. 29, auction house ���dzٳ�����’s presented a rare and significant acquisition from the Arab world: a piece by the late Safeya Binzagr, a seminal figure in the Saudi modern-art scene.  

“Coffee Shop in Madina Road” was painted in 1968, the same year in which Binzagr held her first exhibition with her peer, and fellow art pioneer, Mounirah Mosly in Jeddah.  

“(That exhibition) marked an early, visible moment for women artists in the Kingdom’s modern scene, shaping expectations for subsequent generations,” Alexandra Roy, ���dzٳ�����’s head of sale, Modern and Contemporary Middle East, told Arab News.  

Binzagr’s influence stretched well beyond her work. Perhaps even more significant is the eponymous cultural center she opened in Jeddah, which, Roy said, “cemented her role in preserving and presenting Saudi cultural narratives to the public.” 

It also helped bring through a new generation of Saudi women artists. One of the center’s former students, Daniah Alsaleh, told Arab News soon after Binzagr’s death last year: “Safeya was a true pioneer, dedicated to both art and education, and her contributions will continue to inspire many. I am incredibly grateful for the impact she had on my artistic journey.” 

“Safeya also collected traditional costumes and rarely sold or gifted unique painted works and actually stopped selling in the mid-1970s — a stance that placed artistic and cultural preservation above commercial circulation, while intensifying institutional interest and long-term esteem for her oeuvre,” Roy noted. 

That stance also means that Binzagr’s works rarely feature at auction.  

“Works like this are exceptionally scarce — making any appearance on the market a notable event — and very few are in private hands,” Roy said. “It’s from 1968, placing it at the very start of her public career and within the formative phase in which her visual language and cultural preoccupations were taking shape. 

“Seen against the backdrop of her later museum recognition, the work speaks to an artist whose practice is now preserved institutionally,” she continued. “So this early example carries both historical and documentary weight in the narrative of Saudi modern art.”