Manal Al Dowayan
Courage2013

Not on view

Black and white photograph split into thirteen vertical panels, showing three women in black robes and head coverings seated on a tiled floor, overlaid with handwritten Arabic script

Artist or Maker: Manal Al Dowayan
Saudi Arabia, Dhahran, born 1973
Title: Courage
Place Made: Saudi Arabia
Date Made: 2013
Medium: Archival photo paper mounted on dibond with plexiglas lettering
Dimensions: a-n: 30 7/8 × 3 1/2 × 5 in. (78.42 × 8.89 × 12.7 cm) each a-n) Installation: 30 7/8 × 49 × 5 in. (78.42 × 124.46 × 12.7 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by an anonymous donor
Accession Number: M.2013.105a-n
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Art of the Middle East: Contemporary
Curatorial Notes: Culled from a newspaper clipping, this disassembled image depicts fully veiled women, clothed in the
traditional black abaya, engaged in study. Each section of the photograph is inscribed with an archaic
Arabic word, all synonyms for "courage" and appropriated from a tenth-century text by Abu Mansour
Al-Tha’alby Al-Naysaboury. Rendered in black plexiglass, the three-dimensional, anachronistic words
create a tension and contradiction between these stereotypical representations of today’s Saudi women
and their underlying humanity.

Manal Al Dowayan is one of the best known among the new generation of Saudi artists; she works mainly
in the medium of photography. Her series The State of Disappearance, to which the print Courage
belongs, is the artist’s personal investigation into the portrayal of Saudi women in print media, especially
newspapers. The series is a commentary on the seeming invisibility of a large sector of Saudi women,
who are customarily shrouded in black when in public.
Selected Bibliography: Komaroff, Linda. Islamic Art Now: Contemporary Art of the Middle East. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2015.
Komaroff, Linda. "Islamic Art Now and Then." In Islamic Art: Past, Present, Future, edited by Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, 26-56. New Haven, New York, and London: Yale University Press, 2019.

Related Unframed

Manal Al Dowayan
Courage2013

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Manal Al Dowayan
Saudi Arabia, Dhahran, born 1973
Title: Courage
Place Made: Saudi Arabia
Date Made: 2013
Medium: Archival photo paper mounted on dibond with plexiglas lettering
Dimensions: a-n: 30 7/8 × 3 1/2 × 5 in. (78.42 × 8.89 × 12.7 cm) each a-n) Installation: 30 7/8 × 49 × 5 in. (78.42 × 124.46 × 12.7 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by an anonymous donor
Accession Number: M.2013.105a-n
Classification: Photographs
Collecting Area: Art of the Middle East: Contemporary
Curatorial Notes: Culled from a newspaper clipping, this disassembled image depicts fully veiled women, clothed in the
traditional black abaya, engaged in study. Each section of the photograph is inscribed with an archaic
Arabic word, all synonyms for "courage" and appropriated from a tenth-century text by Abu Mansour
Al-Tha’alby Al-Naysaboury. Rendered in black plexiglass, the three-dimensional, anachronistic words
create a tension and contradiction between these stereotypical representations of today’s Saudi women
and their underlying humanity.

Manal Al Dowayan is one of the best known among the new generation of Saudi artists; she works mainly
in the medium of photography. Her series The State of Disappearance, to which the print Courage
belongs, is the artist’s personal investigation into the portrayal of Saudi women in print media, especially
newspapers. The series is a commentary on the seeming invisibility of a large sector of Saudi women,
who are customarily shrouded in black when in public.
Selected Bibliography: Komaroff, Linda. Islamic Art Now: Contemporary Art of the Middle East. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2015.
Komaroff, Linda. "Islamic Art Now and Then." In Islamic Art: Past, Present, Future, edited by Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom, 26-56. New Haven, New York, and London: Yale University Press, 2019.