The Namesake Salwa Zeidan Gallery - One of Many Firsts in Abu Dhabi

Published on 01 Jul 2025

Namesake Salwa Zeidan Gallery

Abu Dhabi is a known to be the city of contrasts. You will find Arabic mosques and monuments amidst the modern architectures. This exciting destination has a lot of activities for you to participate in from the onset of your journey. The place holds a special position in every tourist’s hearts for its majestic beauty and vibrant lifestyle. The gorgeous weather here blesses the people with an ultimate travelling ambience. There are a plenty of things that keep tourists busy here like cultural entertaining, sports, monuments, museums and galleries. There are many parks to visit as well.

Talking about galleries in the city, Salwa Zeidan Gallery is a modern art gallery that is believed it to be the first art gallery in this splendid, busy city. The world-famous Lebanese artist, Salwa Zeidan founded the beautiful contemporary art gallery. The gallery was named after her.

Abu Dhabi, the ultra-modern city of the United Arab Emirates, is among one of the most popular tourist destinations of the world. A large number of people visit this fascinating city to spend memorable days of their vacation. This beautiful metropolis is well known for its tourism and art and culture. Among various art galleries in Abu Dhabi like Etihad Modern Art Gallery, Folklore Gallery, N2N Gallery and many others; Salwa Zeidan Gallery has emerged as the top contemporary art gallery in the beautiful capital of the UAE. It is always better to have some knowledge about the place, before visiting there.

Location and Other Details

The Namesake Salwa Zeidan Gallery - One of Many Firsts in Abu Dhabi 1

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Salwa Zeidan Gallery is located within the St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort in Abu Dhabi. This award-winning resort is just only 20 minutes’ drive from Abu Dhabi International Airport and only 10 minutes’ drive from the heart of this energetic city.

The beautiful namesake Salwa Zeidan Art Gallery was established in the year, 1994. The renowned Lebanese artist, Salwa Zeidan is known as the founder of this modern art gallery. Later on, in the year, 2009, the authorities reopened the contemporary art gallery. None other than His Highness Sheikh Nahyan Mabarak Al Nahyan sponsored the recommencement of this stunning art gallery.

A Brief History of Salwa Zeidan

Knowing about the history of a certain place helps us in understanding the place better. You can try this for any historical place or museum or maybe gallery you are visiting. The more you will know about the place the more you can identify with the place. We recommend this to every tourist we cater. In fact, we discuss this prior to the journey itself as we share the itinerary with them. Apart from knowing the history from before, recent expert guides with the tourist who are all well versed about the detailed background of every place they take their visitors to.

Salwa Zeidan is a Lebanese artist who taught herself mostly. From childhood till the present day, she devoted her whole life to educating herself with the history of art. This education is mainly done through researching a variety of a large number of books. Moreover, surveying and exploring the various art exhibitions, galleries and hundreds of museums have also contributed in expanding her knowledge about art. Salwa Zeidan, also personally visits popular and famous art studious all around the globe. Her fondness, love, and passion for art have helped her in earning distinctive, modern and innovative capabilities.

Salwa Zeidan started showcasing her magical works in the year 1989. Her wonderful paintings and different artworks are put on display in the art museums and galleries all over the world. In other words, her works are exhibited in countries like Spain, Turkey, Italy, Canada, the States, London, the Emirates, Switzerland and many others. She is a sculptor, painter, and guardian of this contemporary art gallery. She has a working experience of more than 25 years in this field of art.

Description of Salwa Zeidan Art Gallery

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Source: Twitter Image by salwazeidangallery.com

The splendid Salwa Zeidan Gallery mostly focuses its attention on the contemporary art. This modern stylish gallery displays the artwork of both the world-renowned and emerging artists across the globe. Salwa Zeidan Art Gallery provides an opportunity to all the famous and distinguished artists to exhibit their works in the Emirates capital city.

The common characteristic features of all the displayed artworks in Salwa Zeidan Art Gallery are minimalist vision and sensibility. Salwa Zeidan, herself, critically examines analyses and chooses every artwork displayed here. With her incredible working experience, she can undoubtedly relate to the emotions attached to that exhibited work. She can narrate skilfully if the displayed artworks, here, have some mechanical and commercial features or the artists had some emotional bonding with that work.

Salwa Zeidan Art Gallery is a mean of communicating and expressing oneself through the various artworks. The artwork can be of various mediums. These artworks differ greatly from photography, paintings, and sculptors to performance art and installation.

The officials have put on display the beautiful and incredible works of some talented artists from all over the world. In fact, it exhibited the works from brilliant artists such as Nedim Kufi, Sharif Mohammed Kazem, Adonis, Derak Shani, Fatema Al Mazrouie, Kourosh Salehi, Jamal Abdul, Zhuang Hong Yi and many others. Moreover, at present, this modern art gallery works with over 60 talented artists. Though, the list of selected artists, on the statement and declaration agreement in the offices, is around 35.

The mesmerizing Salwa Zeidan Art Gallery very much focuses its attention in its art fair scheme. To name some art fairs such as Abu Dhabi Art Fair, Art India, Art Dubai, Scope Basel and many others. This is a major contribution to the cultural development of Abu Dhabi. The city takes pride as one of the top cultural destinations of the world. Salwa Zeidan Gallery makes sure that all the fairs in which it takes part are highly renowned and great in rank, status, and importance. In other words, the art fairs should have global recognition and high organisational standard and quality.

The officials and higher authorities of Salwa Zeidan Gallery have auctioned many of the renowned and incredible artworks at the famous auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s. They have successfully and profitably sold the artworks at these auction houses.

The beautiful contemporary art gallery assists and promotes the local talents. Besides, encouraging and assisting the talented artists of Abu Dhabi, Salwa Zeidan Gallery has emerged as the world-famous gallery. This recognition was largely due to its selective depiction of many of the United Arab Emirates’ prominent artists in the diversity of means of expressions and styles.

Salwa Zeidan Gallery is known to be the first online gallery of the Middle East. It was inaugurated in June 2013. This was a huge step in the cultural growth of Abu Dhabi. After the commencement of the online gallery, the scopes for the artists widened. Their talents are not only limited within the Emirates. They can display their works online and get the much-desired fame and attraction. The very talented artists and their artworks now get a worldwide attraction, interest, and recognition.

Presently, Salwa Zeidan Art Gallery is an important source of information for the private and corporate collectors in the United Arab Emirates. It is now one of the busiest art spaces in the capital city, Abu Dhabi.

Salwa Zeidan Art Gallery is open 5 days a week. It is open from Sunday to Thursday. The opening hours are from 10 am to 7 pm. This gallery remains closed on every Friday and Saturday.

Parking should not be an issue in this incredible modern art gallery. Salwa Zeidan Gallery provides an ample amount of space for parking cars. For the assistance of the visitors, the splendid gallery also provides valet parking facilities.

The entry is absolutely free of charge of every visitor visiting this contemporary art gallery.

Closing Words

If you are interested in arts and artworks, then this place is a must visit for you. Next time, when you visit Abu Dhabi, the namesake art gallery should be on your priority list. The gallery exhibits sufficient mediums of artworks to keep you occupied for the day. If you are lucky enough, you can have a chance to be hosted by the Queen of culture, Salwa Zeidan. Abu Dhabi is known to be one of the most promising cultural hubs in the world.

The trip to Abu Dhabi is a lifetime experience for all the tourists. The local tour guides will assist the tourists through the remarkable tour of Salwa Zeidan Gallery. Customer satisfaction is the prime motive. The tourists will be picked up in our air-conditioned cars from their hotels. The tour guides are well experienced and are well versed in the art and culture of the city. They can provide any sort of information to satisfy the inquisitive minds of the tourists. The local tour guides arrange small groups to provide personal attention. After the memorable trip to this namesake gallery, the guides will drop off the tourists at their desired hotels to relax, making it a wonderful way to explore Abu Dhabi with ease and comfort.