Mathaf Collections

At the heart of Mathaf is the original collection of thousands of paintings, sculptures and works on paper brought together by our founder, H.E. Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali Al Thani.

The collection includes work by artists from every Arab country, representing major trends and sites of production in the region. The earliest modern works are from the 1840s, and the most recent contemporary works bring us up to the present day.

It was H.E. Sheikh Hassan Al Thani’s personal mission to build a collection that would highlight the significance of Arab art and would become a public resource. He also collected books and periodicals and began an artist residency program, which created a wealth of archival materials documenting Arab artists and artwork.

Mathaf is now working to ensure that this collection will be available for artists and scholars to visit and study in person. The collection will also ultimately be documented in an open online database for our global public.