Qatar Museums to present revelatory exhibition on Jean-Léon Gérôme

Doha: Qatar Museums has announced the upcoming thought provoking exhibition on the art and legacy of the French painter and sculptor Jean L on G r me...

Doha: Qatar Museums has announced the upcoming thought-provoking exhibition on the art and legacy of the French painter and sculptor Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), marking the 200th anniversary of the artist’s birth.

On view from November 2, 2024 to February 22, 2025, Seeing Is Believing: the art and influence of Gérôme unfolds across three separate yet interconnected sections, each one presenting, questioning or reevaluating Gérôme’s artistic output through different perspectives, artistic mediums and points in time. The exhibition is organised by the future Lusail Museum in collaboration with Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, which will host the presentation.

The exhibition features nearly 400 works, drawing extensively from the future Lusail Museum’s unparalleled collection of Orientalist art, including European depictions of the MENASA region spanning the 16th through 19th centuries.

It also includes significant loans from Qatar Museums’ General Collections and prestigious institutions worldwide such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Islamic Arts Museum, Malaysia. New works commissioned from artists including Babi Badalov (b. 1959, Azerbaijan) and Nadia Kaabi-Linke (b. 1978, Tunisia) will reinterpret Gérôme for the 21st century.

Dr. Julia Gonnella, Director of the future Lusail Museum, commented, “Seeing is Believing: The Art and Influence of Gérôme fulfils a key mission of our institution: to look at Orientalist paintings with a fresh eye, rooted in the perspective of the MENASA region and to critically analyse their position within the framework of the Orientalist debate and colonial power structure.