Press Release

President of United States commissions M. Zakariya

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, June 2009 – Linearis Institute is pleased to announce that renowned Islamic calligraphy artist Mohamed Zakariya was recently commissioned by U.S. President Barack Obama to create a gift of calligraphy for King Abdullah Bin Adulaziz of Saudi Arabia. Zakariya has been represented exclusively by Linearis Institute since 2005.

The commissioned gift is a work of Islamic calligraphy in Arabic Sulus script with ink and gold on Ahar paper with Ebru borders and backing, created on June 2, 2009 for the occasion of President Obama’s visit to the Middle East. The gift was presented to King Abdullah shortly after President Obama’s arrival on Wednesday in Saudi Arabia, when the two leaders met privately at King Abdullah’s farm. Taken from the Qur’an (Chapter 49:Verse 13), the English translation of the script reads:

“O people, we created you from the same male and female, and rendered you distinct peoples and tribes, that you may recognize one another. The noblest among you in God’s sight is the most conscientious of you. God is All-Knowing, All-Aware.”

In echoing King Abdullah’s important calls for interfaith and intercultural dialogue, President Obama included this quote from the Qur’an in his speech at Cairo University in Egypt on Thursday, June 4 2009. Mohamed Zakariya is an American master of Islamic calligraphy. With no formal education, Zakariya learned his trades in aerospace-industry machine shops; in the Los Angeles atelier of Oscar Meyer, the French impresario of antiques and objects de virtu; at the British Museum; and at Istanbul’s Research Center for Islamic Art, History, and Culture, where he earned two licenses in Islamic calligraphy—the first Westerner to do so.

Since settling in the Washington, D.C., area in 1972, Zakariya has traveled frequently to Turkey and the Persian Gulf and has exhibited and lectured extensively in this country and abroad. Known for his design of the “Eid Greetings” U.S. postage stamp, he concentrates primarily on classical Arabic and Ottoman Turkish calligraphy. Recent experience includes a stint as artist-in-residence at the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art in Honolulu; solo exhibitions at the Linearis Institute, San Francisco, the Bellevue (Washington) Arts Center, and the Asia Society, New York; and group exhibitions in Dubai and Kuwait. Taking it as his mission to revive classical texts through aesthetically arresting presentation, Zakariya is considered the preeminent ambassador of the art of Islamic calligraphy in America.

For more information on Mohamed Zakariya and/or Linearis Institute, please contact Linearis gallery director Adrianne Lee at (415) 362-3906 or adrianne@linearisinstitute.com