Abdulrahman al Soliman

Abdulrahman al Soliman was born in 1954 in Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia. He trained through a diploma in art education at a Teachers' Institute in Saudi Arabia and later undertook non-degree studies in graphic arts at the Asilah Cultural Festival in Morocco. From 1983 he has served as fine arts editor of the newspaper Al-Yaum. He led the Department of Fine Arts at the Society of Culture and Arts in Dammam from 1987 to 2000, and from 2007 to 2012 he served as the first president of the Saudi Society for Fine Arts.

Alongside his painting practice, al Soliman has written several reference works on the history of Saudi visual art, including titles rendered in English as The Journey of Saudi Visual Art, Saudi Visual Art in the Eastern Region, and Transformations of Saudi Fine Art. His paintings and ink drawings draw on Arabic ornamental and calligraphic motifs alongside a cubist-inspired approach to figuration. As of mid-2026, he is a living artist based in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, continuing to exhibit and to be honored by Saudi cultural institutions; no source in the current record indicates a death date.

Regional art press has consistently framed al Soliman as one of the architects of contemporary Saudi art, citing an artistic career spanning more than five decades and a run of local and international awards, including prizes at Saudi national exhibitions in the 1980s and a painting prize at the 1997 Sharjah International Biennial of Arts. The Misk Art Institute in Riyadh has honored him as a pioneer of the Kingdom's fine art movement, a recognition that has anchored subsequent institutional coverage of his career. More recent attention has placed him within a broader reassessment of Saudi modernism, including his inclusion in the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale in 2024.

Al Soliman's auction record is Worshippers leaving the Mosque, sold at Sotheby's London on 23 October 2018 as part of the 20th Century Art, Middle East sale, for GBP 137,500 (about USD 178,502 at the time). Market trackers report that his realized auction prices have otherwise ranged as low as roughly USD 2,956, reflecting a market with only a modest number of public sales and considerable variation by size and medium. He is presented by two Saudi galleries, Hafez Gallery in Jeddah and Gallery Naila in Riyadh.

Al Soliman's market is small and unevenly documented compared with better-known international names, so individual auction results should be read with caution rather than as a stable price curve. No catalogue raisonne has been identified, which places extra weight on gallery-level provenance from Hafez Gallery or Gallery Naila when considering a work. Buyers should also be aware that his name appears across sources in several transliterations, including Abdulrahman Al Soliman, Abdulrahman Al-Soliman, Abdulrahman Alsoliman, and Abdulrahman Soliman, all referring to the same artist, which is worth checking when searching auction databases or verifying a lot. Museum holdings reported for the artist, including the Sharjah Art Museum and a national museum in Jordan, support his institutional standing, though the specific Jordanian institution and a Mexico museum credited with holding his work are named only generically in gallery materials and should be confirmed before being cited by exact name.