Mathaf — Arab Museum of Modern Art

Mathaf occupies a converted school building in Education City, Qatar Foundation's campus on the western edge of Doha. The collection spans a century and a half of Arab art: Egyptian social realism from the 1940s, Iraqi modernism, Palestinian works from before and after 1948, Gulf abstraction, and contemporary pieces from across the Arab world.

The building itself is modest compared to Doha's purpose-built cultural palaces, but the collection is the real draw. Temporary exhibitions have featured major figures such as Dia Al-Azzawi and Parviz Tanavoli. The café and bookshop are good; the surrounding Education City campus is pleasant to walk around and includes branch campuses of several American universities.

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A story
Mathaf opened in 2010 with a collection built almost entirely from the personal holdings of Sheikh Hassan bin Mohamed Al Thani, who spent decades acquiring works that major Western institutions had overlooked. The result is the largest dedicated collection of Arab modern art in the world — around 9,000 works spanning the 1840s to the present.