The Sharjah Art Foundation Collection’s roots were seeded with acquisitions and commissions from the Sharjah Biennial and Foundation. It has since grown to be one of the Middle East’s pre-eminent collections, serving to enrich the lives of audiences through the acquisition and rotating exhibition of significant works of modern and contemporary art, both locally and internationally.

The more than 1,300 works span art movements from the 1920s to the present day in an ever-expanding range of visual culture and forms. Reflecting Sharjah’s history as a major regional trade route, the collection acts as a node that connects cultures through modern and contemporary art. The collection proposes a re-authoring of the history of art, contextualising it from a South/ South and East/East perspective while offering an alternative view that shifts the axis of this history to a more inclusive, intergenerational, and transcultural one.