Ali Wijdan

Born Amman, Jordan, 1939.

Wijdan is an art historian, painter and art curator. She graduated in history from the Beirut College for Women, 1961, and gained a PhD in the history of Islamic art from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 1993. Her art training began in the late 1950s under Muhanna Durra, a leading artist of the modern art movement in Jordan.Wijdan has written, edited and contributed to a number of publications on traditional and contemporary art from the Islamic world. She is the founder of the Royal Society of Fine Arts, 1979, and the National Gallery of Fine Arts, 1980, in Jordan, as well as founder and dean of the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Jordan, 2001–2. Since October 2006, she has been the Jordanian ambassador to Italy. She lives and works in Rome.