Building upon a historic, decade-long collaboration with the renowned al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait, which has brought hundreds of objects of Islamic art on extended loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Museum will mark the 10thanniversary of that initiative by opening new, permanent galleries for Art of the Islamic Worlds on March 5, 2023. Collector Hossein Afshar has endowed these fresh galleries. They will present the full extent of MFAH holdings in Islamic art for the first time in the context of an extensive selection of Iranian masterworks on long-term loans from the Afshar Collection. Carefully assembled over the past 50 years, the distinguished Afshar Collection conveys the rich artistic traditions of Iranian civilization from the 7th to 19th century in several hundred exquisite paintings, significant ceramics, precious inlaid metal ware, and finely woven silk fabrics and carpets. The MFAH has devoted permanent gallery space to Islamic art for over a decade. The new Afshar galleries nearly double the previous display space for Islamic art Hundreds of objects—exquisite paintings, manuscripts, ceramics, carpets, and metalwork spanning more than 1,000 years—will reflect the breadth of historic Islamic lands, including present-day Morocco, Spain, Tunisia, Egypt, Türkiye, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

The opening of the galleries culminates in a significant, longtime initiative at the MFAH to develop special exhibitions, new scholarships, signature acquisitions, and dynamic public programs for Islamic art. The extended loans from the Afshar Collection are the second such partnership initiated by the Museum; the first was the 2012 landmark agreement with Theal-Sabah Collection, Kuwait, which has placed several hundred objects from that exceptional art collection from Islamic lands on extended loan to the MFAH. Gary Tinterow, Director, the Margaret Alkek Williams Chair of the MFAH, said, “These new, permanent galleries enable us to significantly expand a cultural home in Houston for art from historic Islamic lands. We remain enormously grateful to Sheikha Hussa Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah and the late Sheikh Nasser Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who placed their distinguished holdings with the Museum on long-term loan in 2012. And we are immensely grateful to Hossein Afshar, creator of perhaps the most extensive collection of Iranian art in private hands, for placing his collection on long-term loan so that we may enhance our effort to reflect the city whose many communities we serve.” the new galleries are a culmination of the strong partnership between the Museum, our dynamic Houston communities, and an extraordinary historical collection,” said AiméeFroom, curator Art of the Islamic Worlds at the MFAH. “Encompassing diverse cultures, ethnicities, languages, and regional traditions, this new presentation, with the Museum’s growing collection paired for the first time with the Hossein Afshar Collection, will convey the extraordinarily vibrant contributions and legacies of Islamic civilizations.”

The New Hossein Afshar Galleries for Art of the Islamic Worlds With 6,000 square feet of space, which includes the eventual use of an adjoining garden, the new presentation will highlight a trove of principles. In many cases, rare objects have never been displayed in such depth. As a result, the Museum will be able to show, for the first time, the full strengths of its collections and the extraordinary range of Iranian art from the Hossein Afshar Collection.