Abdul Qader Al Rais: painter of Emirati architecture and Arabic letters

Abdul Qader Al Rais

Abdul Qader Al Rais, born in Dubai in 1951, trained in Kuwait and painted the coral-stone houses and wind towers of the pre-oil Gulf in watercolour. His later abstract work uses Arabic letters; his triptych Bishra sold for AED 1 million at Christie's first Dubai auction in 2008.

Updated October 2026 · Facts checked 22 October 2026

At a glance

At a glance
Item	Detail
Name in Arabic	عبد القادر الريس
Born	1951, Dubai
Training	Marsam Al Hur (Free Art Studio), Kuwait
Media	Oil, watercolour, acrylic

Source: Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Encyclopedia: Abdul Qader Al Rais¹

Early years

Al Rais grew up with his elder sister's family in Kuwait, where the Free Art Studio gave young artists materials and training. He began exhibiting and selling paintings there around 1968, studying monographs of the Dutch and Renaissance masters and the French Impressionists.¹

Architecture and letters

Back in the UAE in the 1970s he worked as a labour inspector and took a degree in Sharia law while continuing to paint, switching to watercolour because it dried quickly. Through the 1980s and 1990s he recorded coral-stone masonry, carved doors and wind towers as the old buildings disappeared.¹

His later paintings use Arabic letters as abstract forms. His commissions include artwork on Dubai Metro carriages for the 2015 Dubai Art Season and a painting of the UAE map with the names of the founding Rulers for the Etihad Museum in 2017.^1,2

Sources

Facts checked 22 October 2026. Prepared by Invest-Emirates.ae for general information.

Abdul Qader Al Rais