Category: 50s to 90s

Below is another interesting story by John Beresford who used to live in Kuwait back in the 50s and 60s. This time it’s about The Burgan Blowout which I hadn’t heard about until I read his story. It’s a bit long but if you like old stuff related to Kuwait you’ll find it interesting.

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I am sure that there are quite a few people reading this who were in Kuwait after the Iraqis were driven out during the first Gulf War and who experienced the nightmare of the destruction of the oilfields when the Iraqis blew up so many oil wells. I don’t know what that was like, the pollution, the burning, I don’t know if the ground trembled and if people heard a constant moan which, on getting closer, became a roar. But I did experience Burgan Well 331 and as far as I can remember, these are my memories.

The Kuwaiti was the weekly magazine for KOC employees, printed in English and Arabic. The photo on the cover states that the relief well was drilled from a point 1526 feet away from the blowout – approx. 500m. Drilling from there they had to hit a pipe that was 9” wide and hopes that they could pump drilling mud down it to block the well. From the angle of the picture, I think you just do not get any idea of how big or powerful the flame was, but then I was only about 10 ½ years old and I had never experienced anything like this so I might be exaggerating.

To try and put the flames out they needed water, so a pipeline was built, working 24/7, to bring seawater to the well site. I don’t remember if it was 48” pipe or 36”, laid across the desert with every available person and piece of equipment on the job, and it was built in about 1 week. I am sure my father said that it was a week, or just over. Everything was thrown at getting this done. It was a lot of pipes but the steel could be transported flat on trucks and ‘spun’ (spirally welded) as it was laid, which made everything easier. The bulldozers went ahead and flattened the desert and scraped a track alongside which was graded and then the machines came along to build the pipeline.

I remember that at night the horizon was bright with the light of the flame. We lived in Ahmadi at 44/14th Avenue – I don’t know how far away Burgan was, but of course, us kids had to see if we could read by the light of the flame – we could, although at that age our eyes were a lot better than they are now and maybe we could have read by moonlight anyway. And we thought we could hear something, a type of low moan.

The well fire was big, but once the process started to put it out, it became the biggest tourist attraction in the whole of Kuwait and so a plan was put into place to let the public come and see it, but in a controlled manner, so that it was safe and so that no one got in the way. So one evening we got into the car (a little Ford Anglia, same as the car Harry Potter goes flying about in) and drove off to Burgan, and we found ourselves in a bit of a convoy. With my brother and sister I was excited, my mother less so. The red horizon stirred in her memories of 14-15 November 1940, when Coventry had been bombed and the old heart of the city completely destroyed by fire. She was a student nurse in Nottingham and was fire watching that night – she was on the roof of the hospital, with buckets of sand and water and a little pump, to look out for incendiary bombs that might land there and to try and put their flames out before they really got going. If it looked bad she had to raise the alarm. It sounds dangerous but she always maintained that the most dangerous part of it was not falling off the roof! Anyway, she had had a grandstand view of the horizon towards Coventry and saw it light up and just keep on burning, and she said that the well fire reminded her of that night. The destruction was so complete that the Germans coined a new word ‘coventrieren’ meaning to completely destroy a city.

As we drove on the moan became louder and dad asked if we could feel anything; the car felt odd. In fact, the force of the gas coming up, uncontrolled, through the well piping was causing the ground to vibrate and we were starting to feel this through about 5 miles away from the burning blowout. I thought we parked 5 miles away and walked to about 3 miles distance away but now I don’t think that was so, from the silhouette of the oil rig you can tell it is not 5 miles away. I am not sure if it is the relief rig that was about 500m away from the fire as there were quite a few rigs in the area anyway. We got out of the car and it was warm. Kuwait is always going to be warm by most people’s standards, but take away the climate and how we had felt when we went out to get into the car, and now it was warm. And we could feel the vibration through our shoes, into our legs, not big movements, not lurching ones as in an earthquake, but a constant vibration which, while it did not unbalance anyone, did feel odd.

We were grouped and taken to a viewing location, which was nearer. As we got closer the vibrating grew, the sound got louder and we had to speak more loudly, almost shouting, and the temperature increased to a level that was unpleasant. Our skin facing the flames got quite warm. The power coming out of the earth was extremely impressive and it was only one well, one 9” diameter hole, blown out. How many were burning after the 1st Gulf War? All the destruction must have been a scene from hell.

We then got rounded up, counted, and led back to our cars, we got into them, drove back home and our adventure was over. We did manage to take a few photographs and I attach 2 of them. The camera was an old, fold-out, bellows camera with no telescopic lens. I think these 2 pics were taken from the car park as in the originals I can just make out some vehicles. I have another picture that is comprised of 2 photos, a top and a bottom that actually do fit together – if I could find them I would post them – but they produce an image which is about twice the size of these, so I guess they were taken from the viewing area. Basically the same image, but bigger.

At this time I was back in Kuwait with my parents because it was the Christmas holidays. At the age of 9 years old I had been sent back to the UK to go to boarding school. The logic was that as dad was going to be working overseas, and because the KOC school – the Anglo American School – only took children up to the age of 13, I would have to go to boarding school when young in order to get taught for the Common Entrance exam which I needed to pass at the age of 13 to get to Public School (the English term for a private school that took children as borders until they were 18 and had done their exams to get to university. There were just about no State-run boarding schools back then). And at the time there might have been 1 school in Kuwait Town that took children up to 18 or so but it wasn’t clear if their exams would count towards a UK university entrance so boarding school at 9 it had to be. This meant that after the holidays I had to fly back to London in order to go back to school.

So, whatever day it was that I flew back, my parents took me to the airport, which was on the site of the Kuwait International Airport is now (I think) but it was the original one in that location before any updated version was built. Parents were allowed to sit with their children in the departure lounge until the flight was called. And as we were sitting there my father said ‘John, look over there’ and sitting with some companions was Red Adair himself, the guy who had been called in to put out the well fire. He was wearing a long-sleeved cotton shirt, collar unbuttoned, his trousers were over his cowboy boots and dad said ‘Look at him, see, he’s missing part of a finger’. And I looked, and yes, there was the end of a digit missing. In fact, there seemed to be several bits missing, there were assorted small scars, burn scars, I think there was a bit of an ear missing, he moved a bit differently to most people because he kept running into flames and heat and played with explosives but he must have had a good idea what he was doing because he was still alive. Several children went up to him and asked for his autograph, which he graciously gave to them, and he chatted to them even though he had such a tough reputation as someone who could not be killed. He allegedly earned a fantastic amount of money and his contract said that any oil company that called him in had to supply the equipment he wanted and after the job, he got to keep it and the oil company would store it for him until he needed it again. But basically, for KOC, it was a form of insurance. He and his team put their lives on the line to put out fires. Thank God they did!

Interesting Fact: Red Adair was brought back to Kuwait 26 years later in 1991 after the Iraqi invasion to cap the burning oil wells.

In 1991 Adair was asked to help cap the oil fires set by Iraqi troops fleeing Kuwait during the Persian Gulf War. Although it was thought that controlling these fires would take years to accomplish, Adair’s team capped 117 wells and aided other teams in completing the job in eight months. Adair retired from firefighting in 1994. Source

Note: Scans of The Kuwaiti magazine taken by SJM Banfield (if anyone knows him let me know!)

Update: Here is a photo of the Blowout taken from the Tarek Rajab Museum archives.

A few years ago, a reader called John Beresford who used to live in Kuwait back in the 50s sent me some photos and a writeup in life in Kuwait back then. The posts turned out to be incredibly popular and crazily enough, a bunch of people who used to be kids growing up in Ahmadi back in the 50s started reconnecting again in the comments of those posts. Yesterday John got in touch with me again since he had found and scanned some old postcards of his dating from that era. He shared them with me along with some comments on each. As with the previous posts, John shares a lot of interesting insights and tidbits to life in Kuwait back in the 50s so please make sure you read his comments under the postcards.

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A couple of years ago I sent you some memories of life in Ahmadi in the 1950s.

I have found some old postcards, a couple are 1960’s, the rest must be the early 50s, maybe the 1940s. I am unsure when the British Residency became the British embassy or when the Naif Gate disappeared, but if you find out it might give a guide to dating them.

Jashanmal Kuwait City
Jashanmals have been around forever in the Gulf. We used the one in Ahmadi which like most other shops was moved to a new shopping center built in the early 1960s. I don’t remember the part of Ahmadi this was in, but I still remember the road system and I can even mentally drive there after more than 50 years! I recall the Indian manageress telling my mother that the inflatable globes she had ordered for the shop were useless as customs had cut the map of Israel out of each one!

British Agency, Kuwait Town
I am unsure when this was taken. I suspect Sir Percy Cox was still around, he was at the time of the Abadan Crisis -1952 I think- my mother was a nurse in MIS and got thrown out with everyone else when the AIOC (Anglo Iranian Oil Co) was nationalized, and was allowed 66lbs baggage allowance to go home to UK. She then signed up to join KOC working at the Nissen hut hospital at Magwa, between Ahmadi and what became the new airport.

Mina Al Ahmedi, South Jetty
This is a view towards the industrial area, with Ahmadi 5 miles in the distance, up the ridge that allowed the oil to flow under gravity down towards the refinery and the jetty. As the spherical LPG tanks are in the picture this is mid-1960’s. On the shore, just out of the pic on the left, is where the Boat Club (Small Boat Owners’ Association) and the yacht Club (Cumberland Yacht Club) were. Their little beaches were gradually surrounded by the KOC Industrial Area. The shoreline on the right wanders up towards Faaheel. The green building suspended over the sea was a facility for ships crew, there was a cafe, games room, basic shopping facilities and a barber which for a time my father used to take me to – he had a pass for the jetty. If a crewman was ill he could be moved up to the KOC hospital, The Southwell Hospital in Ahmadi. The little triangle of water in the foreground is where a whale, unfortunately, became trapped. It swam unexpectedly, perhaps following a tanker, and could not find a way out. Attempts to assist it proved futile and sadly it eventually died. I remember that people were allowed to come and see it when it was still swimming and surfacing, as no-one had seen a whale before. But what type it was, or what size, I don’t remember.

Oil Rig
Once these had been set up they were able to be moved (skidded) on tracks, towed by a team of bulldozers in harness. The desert was firm and basically flat and there wasn’t really anything in the way, so they were towed to where they were next needed. The pipes that took the oil away to the gathering centres, where it received an initial processing that involved getting rid of a lot of the gas (there was no market for LPG at the time) were drape over the desert and where a road had to go, the pipes were dug into trenches and the service road put over it. The service roads are graded desert that had crude oil sprayed on it and then the surface was rolled, with more oil added, and more rolling. They were the smoothest roads I have ever driven on, very quiet. They might have needed some repair after heavy rain, but usually only if they had been underwater since the oiled surface repelled light showers. With very heavy traffic (e.g. trailers with large pipes) the surface could become damaged with furrows where the trailer wheels had made a groove, and if you were in a car and a wheel caught it then it could get exciting, but as you were in the middle of nowhere it wasn’t as though you could hit anything. And if something did go wrong, you always had a supply of water with you, and someone knew you were on that route, and someone was expecting you.

I don’t have any comments for these. I guess they are early 1950s but I don’t know enough about American cars to make a judgment, and anyway, cars from that era seem to last forever. I guess nowadays most people have Japanese/Far Eastern cars but I remember a family trip by car from Ahmadi to Kuwait Town and back in about 1968/1969 and we decided to count the number of Volkswagen Beetles we saw; we nearly reached 900! They were so popular for a time, they were the basic car of choice for those who were not rich. Then after a while, they just disappeared.

There is a book I’ve been wanting to post about since September, but I held myself back since I wanted to at least get a copy of the book for myself before I tell everyone about it. The book is called “Aftermath” and was originally published back in 1992 in French under the name “Fait” (which means fact) and a year later published in English. The book is by the French photographer Sophie Ristelhueber who came to Kuwait at the end of the Gulf War to document the traces of conflict. Her series of photographs were then published in her book as well as being exhibited in galleries and museums around the world include the TATE Modern Museum. In the short video below by TATE, Sophie discusses her photographs, her journey to Kuwait and why she captured what she captured.

SOPHIE RISTELHUEBER (French, b. 1949) traveled to Kuwait at the end of the Gulf War to record the physical traces of the conflict. Entitled Fait or Fact, the resulting series of photographs—aerial and ground-level, in color and black-and-white—depicts trenches and tank tracks, bomb craters, dense smoke rising from blazing oil wells, battle detritus scattered in the sand. Ristelhueber hangs the large prints in an expansive grid that at first reads as a beautiful abstract field, then reveals itself to be a reconstitution of the battlefield on the gallery wall. –MoMA

The book isn’t that difficult to come by if you’re willing to throw money at it. Right now there are three copies on AbeBooks but with prices ranging from KD150 to KD230, you might find them for slightly cheaper at around KD130 if you look around the web. Personally, I didn’t want to pay so much since I tend to buy a lot of old books and trust me, it adds up. So I waited and waited for the right copy until a few weeks ago a bookseller in Germany put an original French version up for sale for around KD90. I guess due to the current situation I was able to negotiate the price and bring it down to a much more reasonable KD50.

Unlike other books and photographers of the 1990 war, there is something beautiful in the way Sophie captures the scars. You really need to watch the video above to understand why she captured it the way she did but the end result is breathtaking.

The fact it’s the French version isn’t an issue since the book is filled with photos and just has one spread that actually has any text on it. If you have the chance to purchase it, I highly recommend you do. If you don’t want to spend so much for the original, there is a publisher called Errata that has published the book as part of their books on books series. It doesn’t come in the original form factor, but it does contain all the photos and is priced at just KD15. You can find more info on that here.

There are around 70 photos in total but if you’d like to see more then check out Sophie’s website here.

Update: Sorry video wasn’t embedded properly, just fixed it

A friend recently shared an instagram account with me that contained a lot of cool old photos of Kuwait, many which I hadn’t seen before. The account is called @badshaiji and the guy doesn’t mention the source of the photos, but I don’t think they’re his since I’ve seen a few in other places. I also think he converts a lot of colored photos to black and white for aesthetic reasons.

From all the photos on his account, three stuck out for me. The two above are from 1969 and of seaside casinos (basically coffee shops or social clubs not gambling casinos) that were located in Salmiya on Blajat street. I had never seen these before nor did I know they had existed. The third photo below is of a music shop on Fahad Al Salem street dated 1961. If you want to check out a lot more photos like this then check out the Instagram account @badshaiji

I guess arcades are making a come back in Kuwait, first with Joystixx and now Retro City. Retro City is a new arcade place that recently opened up inside Boulevard Mall. They have one new machine which is Tekken 7 while the rest are retro looking arcade cabinets with old school games installed. The idea is cool but when I was there I didn’t think there was much variation between all the games to keep me entertained, and some games I wasn’t even sure why they were there to begin with. Here are some of the games they had:

Marvel vs Capcom
Tekken 7
The King of Fighters 98
Super Street Fighter II Third Strike
X-Men
The Simpsons
Metal Slug 3
Metal Slug X
Batman
Double Dragon
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Pacman
Space Invaders
Zaxon
Dig Dug
Gun Smoke

The last five games, in my opinion, shouldn’t be there especially since every round costs 250fils. I would have liked to have seen some sports games or some vertical scrollers like Mars Matrix (but at 100fils per game since I tend to die a lot). Retro City does have a small memorabilia/action figures store which is cool. But really though I need an arcade with NBA Jam or with the original Sega Rally (1 not 2) or Daytona USA units.

If you want to check the place out they’re inside Boulevard Mall but hidden. The easiest way to find them is look for the Crash Power store on the ground floor. They’re located in the area behind them. You can also find them on instagram @retrocitykw

I got the email below from a reader who used to live in Kuwait back in the 50s. Not sure how I never came across the video above myself!

Ahmadi In the 50s
I moved out there in 49 and went to the Anglo American school as did my sister Vivienne, In 54 I was sent to school in England and returned every summer to Kuwait on the lollypop Special flights. Most of the Holiday was spent at the Hubara Club around the pool and I remember going to the outdoor cinema with just a chair on the sand.

My last visit was in 1966 with a friend from the uk and I took some movie pictures of my time out there, this has been on Utube for some time under the title “Holiday in Kuwait 1966” which some of you may find interesting enjoy

– Nigel Horner

Nick Ingman is an English arranger, composer and conductor who’s worked with a lot of musicians including Blur, Oasis, Madonna, Elton John and even worked with Radiohead on ‘OK Computer‘ which is one of my favorite albums ever. I hadn’t heard of Nick until a few days ago when a reader made me aware that his 1976 album ‘Terminator’ used the Kuwait Water Towers on the cover. Since it was released around the same time the water towers were completed, this might have been the first time the water towers were ever used in an artwork.

I found three copies of this record on eBay, I just bought one and so there are two more left if you’re interested in picking one up.

Thanks Adam

Lebanese composer and songwriter Rene Bendali has died at the age of 70 in the city of Tripoli, in northern Lebanon.

Bendali shot to fame in the late 1970s and 1980s for performing with his family as a band called The Bendali Family, who were behind songs such as the hit Do You Love Me. Source

I had posted the video “Do You Love Me?” on my blog back in 2007 because it had been shot in Kuwait in 1978. The song and video quickly went viral but I never really researched it more or anything until now. I just found more information about the song and video in the comments here and I copy-pasted it below:

First of all, this was shot using 16mm in front of the kourniche of the Kuwait-Sheraton in exactly August, 1978, but was only made to be featured as a ‘publicity’ shot on film for a Kuwaiti T.V. programme interview with the band (eleven sisters and brothers showcased in a double concert there at the Public Kuwaiti Theatre and a local cinema).

There are snippets and clippettes of this rare, one-hour long interview on YouTube with actress-turned-singer-turned-actress-again S’oaud Al-Abdallah doing the staccato interview with the cheery family who wore velvet uniforms. Kuwaitis were wealthy enough at that time to invite anyone they could ever think of (including at one time, the American disco band Boney-M who allegedly turned into Islam there), and so the Bendalis were in hot demand in that wealthy-beyond-words oil-tick nation.

So, basically the song ‘Do You Love Me?’ wasn’t made in that same year only because that video was shot in the same year: it was a very popular — and energetic — concert-opener ‘medley’, non-song of Roger Bendali’s composition using a 70’s pop hit (Can’t help think of the original artist for the Englizi intro, but it should be The Tremeloes? Someone with time and interest enough better check into that). Contrary to what many believe, René Bendali did not compose nor write the words for the song — He just sang it.

The first recorded version of this song was featured as a medley in their Sgt. Pepper-like T.V. musical show (I was lucky to have watched it when I was still a kid), called ‘Kamera 77’: the show had all the band’s members (rumoured to include even cousins at one point in the show, plus their mother and father). Kamera 77 was really a hit with almost all Arabic nascent ‘colour’ televisions at that time and it sold very well, to the extent that the Bandalis (or Bendalis/Bendaly Family, or in Lebanese-Arabic A’ailit Bandalee), became trully a house-hold name, and oddly enough… still are.

As for the song itself, this medley was put to record in 1976 and it featured only Roger, but then again it’s found its way into many albums and records released by the band (and, later by the Kuwaiti label Al-Naza’aer), and some three different concert versions like the one used here by DJ Dub Snakker still exist. René Bendali is cited here as the originator of the song in 1963, which is very offtrack and wrong. Well, back in 1963 most of the band’s members weren’t even born, for crying out loud.

I couldn’t find the full interview on YouTube but I did find this short clip. If anyone has the link to the full interview please share it below!

Below is also a video I found of their performance in Kuwait. The video says 1979 but I think it’s actually 1978.

Last year I posted about Alan Villiers, an Australian adventurer who came to Kuwait in the 1930s. Alan documented his experience with words and pictures and eventually published the book “Sons of Sindbad” as well as “Sons of Sindbad: The Photographs”.

Last week the Australian Embassy in collaboration with Dar Al-Athar Al-Islammiyah opened up a photo and film exhibition titled ‘Alan Villiers & the Sons of Sindbad: An Australian in 1930s Kuwait’. They even brought in Alan Villiers son to the opening and I ended up getting my 1st edition Sons of Sindbad book signed by him.

If you enjoy my posts on old Kuwait then you’re gonna really like this exhibition. There are a ton of great photos of Kuwait in the 1930s on display as well as videos. The exhibition is at the Amricani Cultural Center and is free of charge. For more info on the exhibition, click here.

I don’t tend to collect as many things as I used to, but recently I got obsessed with trying to obtain some very old and difficult to find English books on Kuwait. The three most recent books I managed to get have now become my most treasured ones, The Arab of the Desert (1949), Kuwait and Her Neighbours (1956), and The Wild Flowers of Kuwait and Bahrain (1955).

I had lusted after these books for some time now but because they were expensive, I never pulled the trigger on them. But, a few weeks back while at the home of the Australian ambassador, I spotted the books on his shelves. It was such an odd experience seeing them live, they were books I had obsessed about virtually but then seeing them in person felt so weird. I couldn’t believe he even had The Wild Flowers of Kuwait and Bahrain, a book written by Violet Dickson, the wife of H. R. P. Dickson and published in 1955. Not only a very difficult book to get because of its scarcity, but also one that wasn’t that popular due to its subject matter.

I quickly flipped through the books and posted some pictures on my Instagram story. As I was flipping through the books and taking photos I quickly realized how badly I needed to have these books. All this time I had been reading on the books and looking at photos of their covers, but I had never seen the books from the inside. Both “The Arab of the Desert” and “Kuwait and Her Neighbours” are filled with illustrations, fold-out maps and family trees, loose documents, black and white photos and tons and tons of interesting information. They are very thick books filled with a lot of content and after spending just a few minutes with them, there was no way I wasn’t getting them.

The first thing I did was delete the photos of the books I had just posted on my Instagram story. I realized if I wanted to get my hands on these books then I should get them first, and then post about them. I then spent the next two weeks going through every website I could find looking for the right copies of these books. I wanted first editions, I wanted the books with their dust jackets, I wanted them in good condition and most importantly, I wanted to pay a reasonable price. After a few emails to various sellers asking for more photos of the books, and after a few more emails negotiating the prices, I managed to get my hands on all three books. I managed to get first editions of Kuwait and Her Neighbours and The Wild Flowers of Kuwait and Bahrain (I think there is only one edition of this anyway), but I ended up getting a second edition print of The Arab of the Desert. I settled for a second edition print because of the price and the fact the copy I got was signed by his wife Violet Dickson.

I’m now trying to figure out how I can share the books online, not fully, but just a way for people to get a feel of these books. The best idea I have so far is to mount a camera on a tripod and then flip through the books while I record a video. If anyone has a better idea let me know. For now, I’ve temporarily created a highlight on my instagram account with pictures of the books and some pages inside. You can check those out on my account @mark248am

While we’re on the subject of Ahmadi today, here are some photos of KOC buildings from the early 60s. These were old postcards that were scanned and the descriptions were written on the back.

One of the married payroll employees houses at Ahmadi

Kuwait Oil Company’s guest house, Ahmadi

The training centre at Ahmadi

Housing for bachelor payroll employees at Ahmadi

For more old postcards (all for sale) click here.

I came across these photos years ago but when I searched the blog I realized I had only shared a couple of them. Below are some photos of a home taken by a family who used to live in Ahmadi back in the early 60s.

Ok this is going to be a long shot but does anyone have an Ahmadi Desert Motoring Club car badge for sale? Back in the old days (like 50s/60s etc.) people use to put badges on their car grills similar to the photo below and so I’m looking for the ADMC car badge to put on the front grill of my Alfa.

There are different variations of this badge either with the word Kuwait or Persian Gulf written on it, I’m not picky and fine with either one. I can’t find the exact date these badges were used by the club in Kuwait but I’m assuming it was in the 50s to late 60s, maybe early 70s.

If you have one or know anyone who would want to sell theirs, let me know!

If you’re itching to buy an interesting book about Kuwait, this is one that came out in 2008 but copies of are still available online. The book deals with the construction of the Kuwait National Assembly building that was designed by Jørn Utzon who was also behind the design of the Sydney Opera House.

Completed in 1982, the Kuwait National Assembly remains one of the outstanding modern buildings completed in the Middle East by a European architect. A tour de force of precast concrete construction, Jørn Utzon’s design also represents the culmination of themes that had preoccupied him throughout his work, notably ways of combining ideas derived from traditional cultures with the ‘additive’ principles of cellular growth found in nature. This beautifully produced book, the latest addition to Edition Bløndal’s acclaimed ‘Utzon Logbook’ series, was developed in close collaboration with Utzon and presents an exceptionally comprehensive account of the Kuwait project through photographs, original drawings and the recollections of key contributors – Utzon’s staff, consulting engineers and contractor, and an extended interview with Utzon himself.

If you check out the publisher’s website they have two videos taken during construction which I had never seen before. You can check those out here.

If you want to buy the book I got my copy from Amazon for $69.

Back in 1977, Andy Warhol came to Kuwait under the invitation of the National Council of Arts, Culture, and Letters and his work was exhibited at the Dhaiat Abdullah Al Salem Gallery. I’ve posted about his visit a number of times before and you can read more about it in my previous post here.

Earlier in the month, I was made aware that a signed copy of his catalog from his exhibit in Kuwait was up for auction in Germany. The first thing I wanted to do was share it with people but since I wanted to bid on it myself I decided not to. The auction house had estimated that the signed catalog would sell for €250 – €360 so I figured I’d play it safe and put a bid of €1005.

The auction took place this past Friday and because the site was in German and I’ve never really taken part in a live auction similar to this, I didn’t know how it would work exactly. To summarize, I was at the race track taking part in the KMT Open Track event on Friday when the auction went live and someone ended up topping my bid and winning the item for €1200.

It sucks because I really wanted it, but I’m guessing whoever bid on it really wanted it to and most likely had a deeper pocket so I’m kinda glad I missed the auction. I’ve been in bidding wars before and things can get out of hand very quickly. In any case, now that auction is over I’m sharing pictures of the signed catalog. Even without the signature, the catalog would have been an interesting purchase. The description for the item on the auction site was in German but here is the rough translation:

Andy Warhol. Catalog for the exhibition in the MAYOR Gallery London and the Dhaiat Abdulla al Salem Gallery in Kuwait 1977. 7 pages each in English and Arabic with staple stitching. 35.5 x 23 cm. Illustrated original cardboard cover and signed on the back by Andy Warhol (a little bit at the edge of the bend, front cover with small paper abrasion in the edge, back cover a little rubbed).

Very rare catalog for the exhibition in London and Kuwait. – Paper slightly creased.

Here is the link to the item on the auction website and below are links to the high res images in case they get deleted from the auction website.

Front Cover
Back Cover