Hussain Sharif Collection

Hussain Sharif (b. 1961) is a Dubai-based pioneering Emirati artist who was central to the development of conceptual arts in the United Arab Emirates. Alongside Emirati artists Hassan Sharif, Mohamed Yousif, Najat Makki, and others, Sharif was a founding member of the UAE's first art association, the Emirates Fine Arts Society (EFAS) in Sharjah, which established important social infrastructure that continues to foster collaborative communities of emerging artists. Sharif has spent his artistic career reimagining and adapting established techniques to reflect and embody his knowledge of his environment, giving new life to industrial materials and refuse like metal wire, cardboard, and paper scraps. Sharif's prolific and varied production of caricatures, paintings, installations, collages, and multimedia art has been widely exhibited in the UAE and internationally.

Born in 1961 in Dubai, Hussain Sharif was inspired to pursue art by the creative atmosphere cultivated at home by his older brother, the late artist Hassan Sharif, who is widely regarded as a pioneer of conceptual and performance art in the UAE. His participation in state-sponsored Arab youth camp programs as a student helped Sharif hone his artistic talent by allowing him to exhibit his work alongside other young artists from neighboring Arab countries. During his travels, Sharif explored the art scenes developing throughout the Gulf countries and the broader Arab world and learned from their style and technique. While still a student in high school, Sharif began drawing caricatures and, between 1975 and 1988, published them daily or weekly in local newspapers such as Al Wahda and Al Fajr newspapers in Abu Dhabi, and Al Khaleej published in Sharjah. Through publishing his work, Sharif was introduced to the journalism industry and built personal relationships with well-established caricature artists like Ali Ferzat, Salah al-Leithy, and Naji al-Ali, among others, and exhibited alongside them in joint caricature exhibitions in the UAE. Sharif held his first solo exhibition in 1981 at the Sharjah Cultural Club where he displayed his original caricature drawings. In 1979, artist Mohamed Yousif returned to the Emirates after receiving a formal art education in Cairo and, energized by his experiences, brought together a group of 16 artists, among them Sharif, to realize their goal of establishing the first art association in the UAE. In 1980, the Emirates Fine Arts Society was founded in Sharjah, sponsored by the Ministry of Information and Culture. The Emirates Fine Arts Society held its first annual exhibition in 1980 which saw the participation of 17 artists, including Hussain Sharif.

Sharif's interest in theatre grew organically through his proximity to Mohamed Yousif's work with the Sharjah National Theatre and, in 1983, he received a government scholarship to attend the High Institute of Kuwait. Sharif continued participating in local exhibitions while studying in Kuwait and, influenced by his brother, exhibited his first installation piece at the 1983 -/+ (Minus/Plus) exhibition held at Al Ahli Club in Dubai. Four years after the Emirates Fine Arts Society was established, they published the first issue of their art journal, Al Tashkeel, spearheaded by Hassan Sharif. The journal was a collection of opinion pieces commenting on prevalent art-related discourse, translations of essays on Western art history and art theory, book reviews, and news of cultural events in the UAE and the Arab world. Members of the Emirates Fine Art Society would participate in each issue's production, with Sharif editing and designing numerous issues. In 1986, Sharif graduated with a degree in theatre design and began working at Sharjah TV, eventually serving as their head designer from 1988 to 1996. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Sharif was part of a core collective of five artists who regularly exhibited together. While the group was sometimes joined by transitory artists, the foundational participants, the brothers Hassan and Hussain Sharif, Abdullah Al Saadi, Mohamed Kazem, and Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, became known informally as "the Five," after the 2002 exhibition titled 5 UAE held at the Ludwig Forum For International Art in Aachen, Germany.

In 2007, Abdulraheem Sharif, the brother of Hassan and Hussain, transformed his family home and a nearby warehouse into the Flying House, a joint exhibition and studio space and a substitute for Hassan's Satwa home, as a meeting place for artists, writers, and intellectuals to exchange ideas. Abdulraheem, alongside his brothers, Mohamed Kazem, and Dutch artist Jos Clevers, invested in the Flying House to combat the idea that prevailed in the artists' youth – that there was no contemporary art in the UAE. The Flying House, named after a painting by Clevers, now serves as a studio, gallery space, and documentation center for the contemporary art movement in the UAE.

Hussain Sharif exhibited widely throughout his career, both locally and internationally. He participated in most Emirates Fine Arts Society exhibitions and those held in collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Culture, local clubs, cultural centers, and galleries. Sharif also participated in international biennials including the 7th Cairo Biennale in 1998, the Dhaka Biennale in 2002, and numerous international exhibitions such as in Russia, Holland, France, Egypt, and Germany. Sharif also received multiple awards for his work, including the first prize for sculpture at the 1997 Sharjah International Art Biennale and the first prize at the Emirates Art Foundation portrait exhibition in 1998. His work is held in multiple public and private collections, including the Barjeel Art Foundation and the Sharjah Art Museum in Sharjah, the ADCO Oil Company in Abu Dhabi, the Commercial Banks of Dubai, and the Sittard Art Center in the Netherlands.