The first female photographer of the Arab world: Who is Karimeh Abbud?

Abbud first learned what should be known about the profession from an Armenian photographer. In the following years, she started to sign her own works and to record Palestine with her own eyes with the camera that her father Esad Abbud gave her as a gift. Today; Although the legacy of Karimeh Abbud, who devoted her life to her art, is largely gone, the few hundred photographs that have survived remain an important reference for those interested in 20th-century Palestine.

Karimeh Abbud or Karimeh Abboud (18 November 1893 – 27 April 1940), was a Palestinian professional photographer and artist who lived and worked in Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century. She was one of the first woman photographers in the Arab World.

In the spring of 2006, an advertisement published in local Arabic-language newspapers in Jerusalem did not escape the attention of Ahmed Maravat, who was then the director of the Nazareth Archives Project; The young man had excitedly contacted the owner of the ad. Maravat, who started to be interested in the recent history of Palestine from his childhood, will come across a much more valuable collection than he imagined when he enters through the door of a vintage shop in Jerusalem on the occasion of an advertisement in the newspaper. He was going to meet Abbud.

Karimeh Abbud was born in the late 1800s in Palestine, still under Ottoman protection, as the second child of a Lebanese family. Growing up in a large family, Abbud was introduced to photography while she was studying at the Schmidt Girls' School in Jerusalem. The young girl, who was quite curious about this new art, which is still in its infancy, learned what should be known about the profession from an Armenian photographer, whom she spent time with for a few years, on the pretext of helping. Abbud finally started to sign her own works and to record Palestine with her own eyes, with the camera that her father, Esad Abbud, who was a pastor of the Lutheran Church in Beit Jala town of Bethlehem, gave him as a gift.

Karimeh, who mostly took photos of her family and guests in her first years after owning a machine of her own, took the road to Lebanon when she reached the age of higher education and enrolled in the American University of Beirut. The photographer, who started to add historical and sociologically valuable places of the region to his collection along with his travels during her days here, immortalized many memories in different cities such as Nazareth, Haifa, Bethlehem, and Taberiye. In the mid-20s, she returned to Bethlehem with her Arabic Literature diploma, and with the help of her recognition in the field, she turned her framing into daily life.

Karimeh Abbud settled in Nazareth with her family in the early 1930s and started working with Fadil Saba, the famous photographer of the time. Abbud, who made a name for herself with the shootings she shot here, became the most important name in portrait and wedding photography in the region, especially after Fadıl Saba immigrated to Haifa and left his shop to herself.

After stepping into professionalism, she used the signature "Karime Abbud - Woman Photographer" and became famous as "the first Arab female photographer".

Living in Nazareth for about ten years and shooting hundreds of shots in his studio, Abbud's life began to change in the 40s.

Diseases in his family and increasing tension in the region; forced him to close his studio and leave Nazareth.

She settled first in Jerusalem and then in Bethlehem, and she continued to engage in photography, albeit less frequently than before. Although she talked about her dream of making an album of her works in correspondence with her cousins ​​during this period, she could never realize this due to the difficult conditions she was in.

Karimeh Abbud's life was thrown to a completely different point with the declaration of the establishment of Israel in May 1948 and the subsequent deaths of her parents; Thousands of photographs, which were considered the most important documents regarding the recent history of Palestine, were lost and the name of the artist, who died in Nazareth in 1955, was not mentioned again for many years… Until she was remembered again half a century after her death.

The calendars were showing in 2006 when Ahmed Maravat, who works on the cultural memory of Palestine and especially on the pre-Israeli occupation period of the region, managed to reach some of the lost heritage of Kerime Abbud, thanks to a newspaper advertisement.

The photographs that came out of the attic of a house in the Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem, came to the antique counter, and with the newspaper advertisement given by the shop owner Boki Boaz, they were in the hands of someone who would really appreciate their value.

The collection, which contains only 400 of thousand of photographs signed by Kerime Abbud, gained the value it deserves in the hands of Ahmed Maravat, and Kerime's story came to light thanks to the young man's curiosity.

Maravat, who met with Duayb Abbud and Maha Odeh, members of the Abbud family still living in Nazareth, gathered all the pieces he could gather about Kerime and wrote an article to keep the memory of "the first Arab woman photographer" alive.

With the article published by Ahmed, the name Kerime Abbud became famous once again, and his photographs reached millions of people both through the exhibitions organized in his name and through online channels.

Although the legacy of Kerime Abbud, who devoted her life to her art, is largely lost, the few hundred photographs that have survived remain an important reference for those interested in 20th-century Palestine.

Photos of the exhibition and some works

https://universes.art/en/nafas/articles/2017/karimeh-abbud/photos