TORONTO.- One of the most significant global collections highlighting handcrafted Arab textiles and cultural belongings, meticulously gathered over decades by a woman who made preserving such items her life’s work, has found an ideal home at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).
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ROM announced the acquisition of The Widad Kawar Collection of Arab Dress and Heritage Arts – comprising nearly 600 garments, accessories, and historic objects of daily life from the Levant region (Jordan, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon) as well as other Arab countries, including Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, the UAE, and Yemen.
Lifelong collector Widad Kamel Kawar personally selected ROM as the home for these unique pieces, thanks to the Museum’s deep history and expertise in collections from the Islamic World.
These carefully selected 20th-century objects are of immense historical and cultural importance, transforming ROM’s collection of Middle Eastern dress and associated arts into the largest public collection of its kind in North America – emphasizing the diversity and rich culture of the region and resonance to diasporic communities today.
This remarkable acquisition is part of the private collection of Widad Kamel Kawar (b.1931), a textile historian based in Amman, Jordan. Born to a Palestinian Christian family and raised in Bethlehem and Ramallah, Widad Kawar has spent a lifetime collecting, documenting, and exhibiting women’s embroidered clothing, jewellery, and objects of daily life from across the deserts, villages, and urban centres of the Arab world. What also sets this truly special collection apart is Kawar’s dedication to interviewing as many of the embroiderers, weavers, silversmiths, and other makers in order to record the stories and experiences behind each object.
In 2014, she established her own museum in Amman, Tiraz: Widad Kawar Home for Arab Dress, to showcase her collection and preserve this growing archive of Arab heritage of the modern era. As part of this ambition to share the collection with audiences from around the world, Widad Kawar personally chose ROM as the ideal partner museum to acquire a select capsule collection of 586 objects and textiles after connecting with Fahmida Suleman, Senior Curator of ROM’s Islamic World collections, an expert in art from the region and the diaspora. Kawar, who has family members living in the Greater Toronto Area, recognized her lifelong legacy of representation would be well served by preserving and presenting a major part of her collection in one of the most multicultural cities in the world.
“I visited ROM many years ago to view its Palestinian dresses dating from the 1850s – the oldest collection of its kind – and witnessed how wonderfully the dresses have been carefully stored, conserved, and exhibited,” says Widad Kawar. “I am confident that ROM will take care of my collection in the same way and share it widely with their audiences. Canada is home to people from across the Arab world, and I hope that communities will find joy and inspiration in their own cultural heritage at ROM.”
Suleman and Sarah Fee, ROM’s Senior Curator of Global Fashion & Textiles, travelled to Jordan in 2019 and 2022 to work with Widad Kawar and her curators to determine which objects would be part of the acquisition – no easy task, given the sheer scale and scope of the overall Kawar collection.
“We worked tirelessly with Mrs. Kawar and her team in Amman to select each and every item – from exquisite hand-embroidered bridal garments and headdresses to a pair of bath clogs inlaid with mother-of-pearl – creating a magnificent core collection of Arab material culture for ROM visitors,” says Fahmida Suleman, ROM Senior Curator, Islamic World. “Her foresight in assembling and safeguarding these treasures ensures that the beauty, craftsmanship, and stories of Arab dress and heritage arts will inspire and educate generations to come.”
“ROM is deeply honoured to acquire the Widad Kawar Collection of Arab Dress and Heritage Arts. This extraordinary collection is a fitting tribute to the vision and dedication of Widad Kawar, whose passion for preserving Arab heritage offers an invaluable cultural legacy that can now be shared with even wider audiences here in Canada and beyond," says Jennifer Wild, ROM Interim Co-Director & CEO.
ROM visitors can get a first glimpse of the Kawar Collection this summer as one of the most striking pieces – a luxuriously embroidered bridal dress and jacket from Bethlehem – is now prominently displayed for a limited time in the Museum’s main-floor Currelly Gallery, alongside related objects including a headdress embellished with coins, ornate silver jewellery, and an elegant veil with handmade lace.
The collection underscores the preservation and documentation of women’s stories through Arab dress (also featured is a selection of garments worn by children and men) and cultural objects that served both as domestic everyday items – from soft furnishings and cooking implements to personal objects used in the public bathhouse – as well as works of art in their own right.
The vibrant colours and complex patterns of coats and dresses tell stories of regional identity, status, birth, marriage, and death, while the ornamental and symbolic elements of silver jewellery convey deep-rooted religious beliefs and social rituals. Even the construction of commonplace items such as a metal lunch box or an empty artillery shell have been transformed into works of art through Arab metalworkers’ skills in engraving and inlay. These objects hold the memories of life in the region over the late 19th and 20th centuries – history often overlooked or lost to conflict, woven in thread or crafted from metal, straw, and wood.
A future ROM-original exhibition and accompanying catalogue to present the full breadth of the collection is currently in development, with a view to integrating modern-day fashions and contemporary art from the Arab world that draw inspiration from traditional dress patterns and embroidery motifs. As part of the planning process, ROM staff will be engaging community members from across the Greater Toronto Area to help shape and support the exhibition.
Widad Kawar still holds and displays the majority of her collection at the Tiraz Centre in Amman and has also donated significant items to the Birzeit University Museum in Ramallah, while continuing to loan pieces from her collection to museum and gallery exhibitions around the world.
