This July marked 20 years since The Jameel Gallery opened at V&A South Kensington. To celebrate, we look back at a year of new displays, live craft and conversation, and ahead to what’s still to come.
About The Jameel Gallery
In July 2006, the V&A opened The Jameel Gallery, the museum’s home for the arts of the Islamic Middle East. Today it brings together around 400 objects from Spain to Central Asia, made between the 8th century and our own time. Ceramics, carpets, metalwork, woodwork, glass and manuscripts sit side by side, and the gallery remains free for everyone to visit.
The gallery was made possible through the support of the Jameel family and marked the beginning of a lasting relationship with the V&A. In 2009 it grew to include the Jameel Prize, an international award that explores the relationship between contemporary practice and Islamic tradition.
This year, supported by Community Jameel, we’ve been marking the gallery’s 20th anniversary with new displays, public programmes, conferences and events.
A year of celebration
Making and craft have been at the heart of the anniversary year, bringing living traditions into the gallery alongside the historic objects that inspired them.
May: The Tentmakers of Cairo
During London Craft Week, we welcomed Egyptian textile artist Hany Abd El-Kader. He demonstrated khayamiyya, the art of cotton appliqué, at a sold-out talk introduced by Seif El Rashidi of the Barakat Trust. A small group also had the chance to do a hands-on workshop with Hany and create their own piece of khayamiyya to take home.
July: Twenty years to the day
On 17 July, we hosted The Islamic art Museumscape, a conference that sought to take the pulse of how museums around the world work with Islamic collections today and what themes and trends have changed and developed in the 20 years since the gallery opened. Later that month, our Friday Late with Shubbak: Body as a Vessel, celebrated contemporary Arab and SWANA creativity.
September: Suzani and the London Design Festival
A new installation by Aziza Kadyri now weaves through the gallery’s arches. Her collaborator, embroidery artist Yulduz Mukhiddinova, travelled from Uzbekistan to lead suzani embroidery sessions in the gallery and at our Awakenings Friday Late, where Uzbek singer-songwriter Laylo also performed. Around 80 people learned the traditional stitch.
Twenty years on
by Mariam Rosser-Owen, Curator Middle East, Asia Department
“As curators of Middle Eastern art, we are so fortunate to be able to work with one of the best collections of Islamic art in the world. The collecting history is so interesting as well. Collecting of Middle Eastern art began in the 1850s, when the Museum was founded to improve British design. Over the next century the V&A’s holdings of Islamic art grew to encompass outstanding and world-famous objects. At the same time, these holdings played a real part in inspiring some of Britain’s greatest artists and designers, including William Morris.
The V&A’s archival holdings, and the information they preserve about the provenance of these collections, are also rich and important. The space that the gallery occupies today was opened in 1950, as a place to display the best of the collection in a dedicated place for the first time. The gallery was refreshed in the 1970s, but by the time the curatorial section of Middle East specialists was formed in 2002, it needed a major overhaul. Thanks to the generosity of the Jameel family, the renovation of the gallery in 2006 allowed the V&A’s world-class collections of Islamic art to shine at their best in an appropriately attractive setting.”
What the gallery means to us
by Fady Jameel, Family Ambassador of Community Jameel and Chairman and Founder of Art Jameel
“The Jameel Gallery at the V&A anchors the Jameel family’s long-standing commitment to supporting and celebrating Islamic art. Over the past 20 years, the gallery has become a platform for research, public engagement, and contemporary creative practice, showing how historic artistic traditions continue to evolve.
Through my family’s partnership with the V&A, and Community Jameel’s wider work supporting traditional arts and craftsmanship, we remain committed to fostering partnerships that preserve these traditions, while ensuring they continue to reach new audiences.”
Five objects not to miss
New to the gallery, or coming back after a while? Start with these.
1. The Ardabil Carpet
Made in 1539 – 40 for the shrine of Shaykh Safi al-Din in Ardabil, north-west Iran, this is the world’s oldest dated carpet. When the gallery opened in 2006, a vast case was built at its centre so the carpet could be seen as intended, on the floor. Time your visit carefully: it is illuminated for ten minutes on the hour and half-hour to help preserve its colours.
2. Rock crystal ewer
Carved in Cairo around 1000 – 1050, this ewer was made for the treasuries of the Fatimid rulers. Look closely to find birds of prey swooping on horned animals among swirling palmette scrolls, all cut from rock crystal.
3. Minbar made for Sultan Qa’itbay
This towering pulpit was made in Cairo between 1468 and 1496. Its geometric patterns are assembled from hundreds of small pieces of carved wood and ivory.
4. Lustreware bowl with a ship
Made in Málaga, Spain, in 1425 – 50, this bowl greets you at the entrance to the gallery. A ship sails across its centre, and its lustre glaze shimmers as you move around it.
5. Pioneering Printmakers in Iran
In the case at the back of the gallery, a new selection of 20th-century Iranian prints comes from a 2023 gift by Tarlan Rafiee and Yashar Samimi Mofakham. The four artists displayed here were leading figures in Iran’s pre-revolutionary modern art movement, working between the 1950s and 1970s. Among them is an untitled 1975 print by Nasser Ovissi, a pioneer of Iran’s Saqqakhaneh movement.
Still to come
In November, during Islamic Art Week, artist Mariam Ashraf will demonstrate the art of plaster carving, the technique used to make decorative windows set with coloured glass, like the 19th-century examples from Cairo in the gallery. The demonstration will be live-streamed.
Twenty years after it opened, The Jameel Gallery is still revealing connections between past and present, bringing together extraordinary objects, living craft and new artistic voices. We hope you’ll come and find your own favourite.
Plan your visit
The Jameel Gallery (Islamic Middle East, Room 42) is at V&A South Kensington. Free admission. No booking is needed.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
