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Elizabeth Rauh

@lizabethrauh

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Art historian, writer, and curator of modern art & visual cultures of Islamic World
research fellow @akpiamit
professor @auc_visualarts

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Join us next Monday during assembly hour for a talk with Dr. Elizabeth Rauh exploring the vibrant world of early 20th-century Islamic poster arts!

Dr. Rauh will be sharing with us her research on how new printing technologies transformed Islamic visual culture through color, religious imagery, pilgrimage practices, and new forms of image circulation.

Monday, 28th of September
1:00 - 2:00 PM
Gerhart Theater, AUC Center for the Arts

*This talk is open to the public.

#AUCVisualArts #Fall2026 #IslamicPosterArts #ResearchTalk #PublicTalk by @lizabethrauh

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25 days ago

1920s Egyptian chromolithograph poster prints of popular religious and heroic stories recently acquired at the Boston MFA Islamic art collections. Boxed up out of sight (and sunlight) in a private collection for over 90 years, their brightly layered & richly saturated inks reveal how modern lithographic colors first appeared in Islamic printing practices. Attributed to Matba’at al-Funun in Cairo, research visit courtesy of Nadirah Mansour.

1. Solomon’s Throne and his armies
2. Noah’s Ark (نوح)
3. 'Ali and the Jinn
4. Al-Buraq al-nabawi al-sharif 😍
5. Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi battling Richard I the Lionhearted
6. 'Ali with Hasan and Husayn
7. Abu Zaid al-Hilali leaving a deadly blow against rival ruler Al-Marasi
8. 'Ali defeating 'Amr bin al-Wadd al-'Amiri at the Battle of the Trench near Khaybar in 627 C.E.

#eidmubarak #islamicart #print #printmaking #arthistory taken in Boston, Massachusetts by @lizabethrauh

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This Thursday at Rutgers University I’ll be speaking about 1960s revolutionary images and Islamic mythologies in Iraq with @islamhumanitiesrutgersnewark

Thanks to @profalexdikasegg for organizing and the warm invite!

#photo #arthistory #islamicart #iraq #art taken in Cambridge, Massachusetts by @lizabethrauh

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7 months ago

Join us Monday March 2 at 6 pm in MIT Room 3-133
Free and open to the public
“I Light Fire to the Tradition” – Radical Art Practices in 1960s Iraq, by AKPIA Research Fellow Dr. Elizabeth Rauh

Talk recording available now: https://mit.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=341fb83d-62c7-4c14-ab17-b4080161536d by @lizabethrauh

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8 months ago

Colorful sketches by the brilliant Egyptian artist and activist Inji Efflatoun (1924-1989):

“The Bathers” pastel on watercolor paper, c. 1970s Alexandria

“Palestinian Resistance II” ink on paper, 1980s Cairo

Images courtesy of @safarkhan1968 🌊🍉

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#art #sketch #drawing #painting #injiefflatoun #arthistory #modernart #contemporaryart #ocean #sea #beach #summer #modernism #landscape #arabart #visual #image #egyptianart #egypt #cairo #sa7el #swim #waves #artist #blues #lines taken in Egypt by @lizabethrauh

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a year ago

“We are part of nature…not apart from it.” Research collections visit to Mazhar Botanical Gardens with the AUC Rare Books & Special Collections Library. The gardens span over 30 acres and include a scientific research center and the herbarium, a scientific museum and data bank for plant conservation and documentation.

Founded in the 1950s by Egyptian film icon Ahmed Mazhar, the botanical collection houses over 75,000 indigenous and rare plant species and helps to promote biodiversity and ecological sustainability. The “living museum” for plants likewise contributes to improving urban air quality and is one of the largest botanical gardens in Africa. 🐚🌿

@mazharbotanicgarden
@auc.rbscl
@auc_visualarts taken in Mazhar Botanic Garden by @lizabethrauh

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a year ago

“Tree of Life” wall painting featuring a fruiting pomegranate tree from the 18th-century Summer Palace of Shaki Khans, built in 1797 in Qajar-era Azerbaijan.

Trees of life symbolism often relates to immortality and fertility. Within Islamic history, the “Tree of Immortality” (شجرة الخلود) appears in many artistic traditions stemming from its appearance in the Qur’an as a symbol of an idea or way of life. Islamic creative expressions often represent the tree’s branches spreading upwards across an architectural niche, with its unfurling leaves or fruiting tendrils hinting at spiritual growth rooted in prayer.

Capable of living for up to a couple hundred years, the pomegranate tree was one of the first fruit trees to be domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean. Since the ancient world they have been considered one of the most sacred and holy of plants, often associated with fertility, prosperity, ambition, and blessings 🌳✨ by @lizabethrauh

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a year ago

Heaven is in the research archives. 💫

Early 1900s carved wooden block (“qalab”) for qalamkār (printed cotton) of the Prophet’s Mi’raj (“Night Journey”), early 20th-century Iran. taken in Amsterdam by @lizabethrauh

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2 years ago

Art has always been a vital part of protest and resistance to injustice and oppression. We kindly invite you to join us for a new research talk, “Arts of Dissent in the Contemporary Middle East” where Assistant Professor and Visual Arts Program Director Dr. Elizabeth Rauh will explore recent examples of creative acts of dissent across the region.

📍 Solidarity Now exhibition, AUC Sharjah Gallery
📅 Monday, February 24
⏰ Assembly Hour | 1:00–2:00 PM

#ArtAndDissent #SolidarityNow #VASA #VisualArts #AUC by @lizabethrauh

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2 years ago

Nature nurtures creativity in this early 1940s watercolor painting by renowned Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy. In this architectural plan situated in Fayoum’s early winter desert landscape, the artist-architect reveals his eye for Egypt’s distinctive landscapes and indigenous traditions. Capturing the magic of Fayoum Lake and its mesmerizing sky mirror waters in this painted blueprint, Fathy situates his new modernist building designs on the lavender-hued waters edge surrounded by local flora and fauna.

Famous for his first book, “Architecture for the Poor (Al-Gouna: A Tale of Two Villages)” (1969) Fathy was notable for reestablishing Egyptian indigenous building techniques including adobe and mud construction, as well as his commitment to studying and reviving ancient Egyptian and Islamic eco-architectural heritage. Fathy’s Fayoum painting is a reminder that attention to nature can cultivate and renew creative inspiration, as can observing the changing seasons and passage of time.

Held in AUC Rare Books & Special Collections Library @auc.rbscl @auc_visualarts

#hassanfathy #architecture #painting #modernism #ecology #modernarchitecture #modernart #arthistory #design #art #nature #landscape #fayoum #islamicart #egyptheritage #heritage #auc #egypt #happynewyear taken in Cairo, Egypt by @lizabethrauh

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2 years ago

Special delivery of the catalogue publication featuring my new essay “Zenith 2024” as part of Ala Ebtekar’s recent “The Sky of the Seven Valleys” exhibition at @thethirdlinedxb @alaebtekar

“This series of ongoing ‘Zenith’ large-scale paintings take inspiration from the well documented, centuries old poem Conference of the Birds (c. 1177) by the Persian story by Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar. The framework of the exhibition takes structure from this epic work championed for the flights of countless birds through seven valleys, fraught journeys of distinct endurances.” A story about the perseverance of spirit that continues to serve as a beacon of hope during times of uncertainty and struggle.

Delighted to receive this published project while I’m working on an expanded version for a future book publication 🌌

#writing #exhibition #contemporaryart #publication #bookstagram #cyanotype #ecology #nature #sky #stars #birds #clouds #nature #cosmos #celestial #conferenceofthebirds #art #painting taken in AUC The American University in Cairo by @lizabethrauh

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Palestinian artist and writer Kamal Boullata (1942-2019) “Nur ‘ala nur | نُّورٌ عَلَى نُورٍ” calligraphic work. Silkscreen print on paper in blue and green ink, 1982

Titled after the famous Qur’anic “Verse of Light” (آیة النور) this prismatic mirror composition or “muthanna” reflects Boullata’s interest in both historical practices of Islamic calligraphy and cosmological imagination (taʾwīl). Illuminating the mirror world the artist created here is the phrase “light over light” over and over, creating a prismatic 3D optical illusion in a flat square surface. The work reveals Boullata’s skilled knowledge of Arabic calligraphy as well as his creative explorations of geometry - namely the square in symbolizing Jerusalem as “the navel of the world.” Boullata once described the interlinked architectural forms of Jerusalem’s circular domes and square plans across the city’s sacred sites, including the Dome of the Rock, as seeking “to mark the divide between heaven and earth.”

Likewise, the art of “muthanna” (double writing) in Islamic calligraphy is often seen as a reminder of human relationships to the divine, as it reflects the beauty of creation in the terrestrial world and veiled beyond.

#contemporaryart #calligraphy #art #modernart #printmaking #silkscreen #print #arabic #kufic #arthistory #islamicart #design by @lizabethrauh

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