Mohammed Jameel Marks 20 Years of The Jameel Gallery at the V&A

Twenty years after The Jameel Gallery opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Mohammed Jameel returned to London this month for an anniversary reception. Guests included Prince Turki Al-Faisal, Prince Abdullah bin Khalid bin Sultan and members of the Jameel family, gathered to trace the gallery’s path from a single refurbished wing to a fixture of the V&A’s Islamic art holdings.

Mohammed Jameel backed the refurbishment that gave the V&A’s Middle East collection new display cases, lighting and multimedia resources, and Prince Turki Al-Faisal used his remarks to recall receiving a personal invitation to that first inauguration two decades ago.

Sir Tristram Hunt, director of the V&A, credited that early support with making the gallery possible at all. Prince Turki Al-Faisal described a friendship with Mohammed Jameel that has lasted two decades, noting that Jameel has since built additional ventures of his own.

A Collection That Became a Program

More than 400 objects sit in the gallery today, among them the Ardabil Carpet, the Minbar of Sultan Qaytbay and a Fatimid rock crystal ewer. The anniversary programming looked past the permanent collection, toward a Palestinian photography fellowship, an exhibition of early 20th-century Saudi royal garments and an upcoming commission from London-based artist Aziza Kadyri. Organizers also designated the evening the first event on the road to the 2029 UK-Saudi Year of Culture.

Fady Jameel, Hassan Jameel, Hisham Hamza and Ghada Alsammanoudi attended alongside Emily Cherrington of The King’s Foundation, whose partnership with the Jameel family runs nearly 20 years through the Jameel Houses of Traditional Arts in Cairo, Jeddah and Scotland. Mohammed Jameel’s original bet on a single museum gallery has since grown into acquisitions, fellowships and a standing prize for contemporary artists working in Islamic traditions.