Works from The Khalid Shoman Collection

Darat al Funun has opened its historic houses in Jabal al Weibdeh to its own collection. Until 31 October 2026, selected works from the Khalid Shoman Collection are on view across four buildings, Dar Khalid, The Blue House, the Headquarters and Beit al Beiruti, in a display that doubles as a portrait of the foundation itself.

The collection began to take shape in the early 1980s and now holds more than 2,000 works, reflecting what Darat describes as "a long history of encounters, conversations, exhibitions, and enduring relationships with artists over the decades". Many of the names on the walls are artists Darat exhibited early, sometimes for the first time in the region.

Modern masters set the tone. Turkish-born Jordanian painter Fahrelnissa Zeid, who spent her last years teaching in Amman, is represented by her portrait of Khalid Shoman (1984) and paintings of Nabila and Mother from the late 1980s. Nearby hang works by Iraqi modernists Shakir Hassan Al Said and Rafa Nasiri, Moroccan artist Farid Belkahia's Jerusalem (1994), and ceramics by Jordanian artist Mahmoud Taha, alongside a wall of Darat's exhibition posters from 1988 to 2018.

Palestine runs through the display. Abdul Hay Mosallam's relief The Martyr Dalal Mughrabi (1978) and Gaza (2009), Khaled Hourani's The Story of the Watermelon (2007), Vera Tamari's earthenware installation Dialogue (around 1995) and Suha Shoman's sand and mixed media series Legend of Petra II sit alongside works by Laila Shawa, Oraib Toukan and Ahmad Nawash. Lebanese artist Akram Zaatari's video Saida June 6, 1982 and Egyptian artist Moataz Nasr's two-channel video The Echo (2003) bring the moving image into the tiled rooms.

For visitors, the pleasure is as much in the setting as the works: 1920s and 1930s houses with patterned floors, tall wooden doors and views over downtown Amman. The display runs alongside In Remembrance of Khalid Shoman, which marks twenty-five years since the death of Darat's co-founder.