The thirst for knowledge
the friend and former minister suleiman majed al-shaheen sent the following text from his introduction to the book ‘history of plastic art in kuwait”, especially concerning the biography of the late moajab al-dosari: “moajab was not only a painter or teacher but also an artist with a delicate painting brush and sense. this is the picture that all his disciples and admirers inherited from him through his great artistic contributions despite his shortage, moving between mubarakiya and shuwaikh (1953).”
i can recall some of the features of this period. the learners of the early fifties were the generation that was impressed by all new things, and moajab was the amateur painter at that time, and friends were tariq fakhri, abdullah taqi, issa boushehri, ahmad al-nafisi, and hussein al-bader and me too who came close to him especially he carried every new thing after returning from his studies with regard to the art of painting in kuwait, it is even more true to say that the history of the plastic movement began with him.
we used to be around him at the society of painting to hear conversations about the various art schools and famous artists and their methods of painting and the history of the arts and museums he had visited and recommended, and about modern techniques, and many things we did not know about.
he was fertile in his artistic work and in his speech as if trying to shorten the time to create the artistic movement that he dreams for his homeland. he was briefing us on his paintings and explaining every idea in them. the painting ‘the fortune teller’ was the closest to my heart although it was not the best of his works. he had an unrelenting attachment to his art.
when we visited him in the winter of 1955 in the amiri hospital where he was receiving treatment for the deadly ulcer, he said a few words that i still remember that what he wished the most in those moments when he was bleeding to hold the brush and dip it in his blood and paint the ‘pain’. that was the great artist moajab who left us at a young age in 1956.
i write this on the occasion of what i mentioned earlier that it was moajab who designed the cover of the official gazette al-kuwait al-youm, and the truth is otherwise. the late suffered a lot of illness in the year in which the cover design contest was conducted, and he was not able to be creative at that time.
reader nasrallah sayed hamid behbehani commented on a report sent by the artist hamza ismail islah to al-qabas on 18/12/2004, about the birth of the first government printing press, where the artist hamza said it was al-safadi the palestinian teacher of art at shuwaikh sharif al-khadra secondary school who won in the competition of designing the cover and the one who implemented the design in its final form is the student hamza islah.
the cover of the first few issues of kuwait al-youm was different from the present one, as it was colored and bore the emblem of the old emirate before it was removed. fadel khalaf el-telji, a writer and diplomat, and the father of our ambassador to cuba was the first editorial secretary of the official gazette.
