Sami Mohammad
| Sami Mohammad | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
October 1, 1943 Kuwait |
| Nationality | Kuwaiti |
| Website | samimohammad |
Sami Mohammad Ahmed Saleh is a Kuwaiti sculptor and artist. He is most known for his bronze sculptures. Most of his artwork deals with the ideas of freedom, oppression, genocide and suffering. In 1971, he was commissioned to make a statue of Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah. He is most known for his Box series, Sabra and Chantila, Hunger and Mother.
Mohammad's work was presented at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, which was the first time Kuwait participated in the event. He has written a book about his work and career, entitled The Art of Sami Mohammad, which was published in 1995.
Mohammad was born in Kuwait on October 1, 1943. His father was a tailor. As a child, he liked playing with clay and made forms that looked like birds and animals and sold them to his friends. When he was a student at Sabaah School, he helped in creating statues for a school project for commemorating the battle of Port Said and Port Fouad. At the inauguration of the display, he was awarded first prize by Sheikh Abdullah Al Jaber Al Sabah, the General Director of education department.
When Mohammad was of 20 years, he left the school to start working at the Ministry of Interior. At the same time, The Free Atelier was formed, that provided art material and tutoring free of charge to the students. The Ministry of Education, which officially administers the Atelier as one of its institutional units, granted him a lifelong stipend. As a stipendiary he acquired studio space at The Free Atelier. He joined the Atelier and went to the Atelier regularly. During those years, he read avidly about the works of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, which influenced the early works in his career.
In 1966, he received a government scholarship to Egypt to study at the Institute of Fine Arts in Cairo, a college of fine arts and completed his degree in 1970. In 1967, he co-founded the Kuwaiti Society of Formative Artists. In 1973, Mohammad got a scholarship for a course of study in the USA to study at the College of Fine Arts in San Francisco. He spent his first year at the Vermont college to improve his English language. Following the course at Vermont, instead of joining College of Fine Arts, he went to Jonhson Institute for artists in Princeton. It was at this institute that he started working with bronze casting and other mediums and techniques.
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