BURAIDAH, 3 September 2007 — Qasim Vice-Governor Prince Faisal ibn Mishaal ibn Saud ibn Abdulaziz opened a photography exhibition entitled “The Middle East Through American Eyes” at the King Khaled Cultural Center in Buraidah on Saturday night.
The 10-day exhibition features the works of Thomas Omar Abercrombie, a former photographer for the National Geographic magazine who frequently photographed Saudi Arabia and subsequently converted to Islam, adopting the name Omar. The exhibition is open every day from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 4:30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.
The exhibition is organized by Ministry of Information and Culture in collaboration with the United States Embassy in Riyadh and the National Geographic magazine, the well-known international magazine Abercrombie worked for until his death in 2006.
The exhibited photos are of Saudi Arabia as well as other countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan and India. The pictures document Saudi history and culture in the 1960s with rare photographs of the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Mosque of the Prophet in Madinah in 1965.
“The works of Thomas Abercrombie aim at bridging the gap between peoples and civilizations,” said Iyad Madani, Minister of Culture and Information adding that his ministry would endeavor to organize this exhibition in other cities of the Kingdom.
“Tom Abercrombie has brought the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, into millions of American homes through his photography and his articles,” said James Oberwetter, US ambassador to the Kingdom, in an introductory message to the exhibition.
Abercrombie, a Minnesotan by birth, was fluent in five languages including Arabic and had traveled to more than 80 countries, often with his wife, Lynn, who was a photographer for National Photographic magazine. Years of travels in the Arab world affected him deeply. He is considered to be the first western journalist to cover the annual pilgrimage to Makkah. Indeed, for many non-Muslims the first images of the Kaaba were seen through his lens.
“Greetings and best wishes from Islam’s holiest city. I’ve just had the singular honor to witness, to cover photographically, and to participate in one of the most moving experiences, and without a doubt, the climax of our coverage of Saudi Arabia,” Abercrombie wrote from Makkah in 1965 in a letter to Melville Grosvenor, the then editor-in-chief of National Geographic.
In one of his published interviews, he talked about the importance of the Middle East, saying “What we define as civilization began there. Our legal system and of course our religions began here. For a long time, even before Europe got its feet out of the mud, so to speak, before the Dark Ages, Middle Eastern cultures were thriving and getting Europe ready for the Renaissance. This place has a strong influence on us, but Americans don’t know anything about it.”
