Two Jordanian artists

Suha Shoman

Suha Shoman was born in Jerusalem in 1944. In 1948 her family took refuge in Egypt, where she grew up. During the 1960s she studied law in Beirut and Paris, and in 1973 settled in Jordan. She became a student of renowned artist Fahrelnissa Zeid, and in1993 established the Darat al Funun centre for art in collaboration with the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation. Darat al Funun is an extensive “home for the arts”, with exhibition halls, studios, library, permanent collections and its comprehensive website in English (http://www.daratalfunun.org). Shoman is renowned for her works about Petra, the ancient Nabatean city in the South of Jordan, whose magnificent ruins and marbled rocks with their changing colours, fanned by wind and time she has recreated using oils and in mixed media in three major series of abstract works, the Legend of Petra, Petra II and Petra III. Two works are reproduced here and on the front cover. Her works have been exhibited in Amman, Paris, London, Ontario, Sicily, Washington DC, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta and Dacca, and are held in many museum collections.

Legend of Petra, oil on canvas, 200cm x 150cm, 1985–1986

Front cover: Petra II (one of a series of 21), sand and mixed media on paper, 77cm x 58cm, 1992–1993

Composition in relief, acrylic on canvas, 95cm x 140cm, 1995

Mohanna Durra

Mohanna Durra was born in 1938 in Amman, and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, returning to Amman to teach History of Art. During the 1960s he lived in Rome, going back to Jordan in 1970 where he received the Kawkab decoration from HM King Hussein. That year he founded the Jordan Institute of Fine Arts and became director-general of the Department of Culture and Fine Art. In the 1980s he lived in Tunis and Rome and received an Italian medal of Cultural Heritage. In the 1990s he lived in Cairo and Moscow. He has exhibited his work in Washington DC, many European capitals, Venice, Valletta, Moscow and St Petersburg. His work is held in collections in the Vatican, the Philippines, at Georgetown University Washington DC, by the Jordan National Gallery, the Canadian Government and many others. (See also this inside back cover)