This week’s focus is on The Asala Collection, an archive of over 33,000 photographs of The United Arab Emirates, The Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Palestine and The Holy Land which Daniel Crouch Rare Books is taking to this year’s edition of Abu Dhabi Art which runs November 20 – 24.
The Asala Collection offers a portrait of the formation of the modern Middle East, from 1860-1960. Composed of over 350 albums, loose images and glass slides, all of vernacular photography, the majority of the images are unique and personal, taken by individuals who were eyewitnesses to historical events and the street scenes of everyday life, royal palaces and empty deserts.
This private collection was curated over the course of 20 years and records the effects of some of the most significant events of that century, including the Anti-British uprisings in Iraq and Egypt, both World Wars, the Ikhwan revolt, the establishment of Israel, the coronation of King Faisal in Iraq, The Suez Crisis, Transjordan, and the end of mandates in Syria and Palestine.
It also incorporates the first true colour photographs of the Middle East, the extremely rare glass autochromes of Egypt and Jordan from Albert Kahn’s Archive of the Planet series, circa 1910-17.
The Asala Collection also includes previously unknown portraits of the most influential principals in the arena such as Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, King Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, Sultan Taimur bin Faisal bin Turki Al Said of Oman, Sheikh Salim al-Mubarak al-Sabah of Kuwait, T.E Lawrence, Gertrude Bell, and Winston Churchill.
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