Qatar Foundation’s (QF) Lawh Wa Qalam: M F Husain Museum, on International Museum Day 2026, celebrates its role as an arts and culture landmark that embodies inclusivity and diversity, staying true to the vision of renowned modern art master Maqbool Fida Husain.
Housed within QF’s Education City, the museum is a natural extension of QF’s belief that learning unlocks human potential. Education City’s diverse community, representing more than 119 nationalities, echoes Husain’s own life across cultures. Born in India and later a Qatari citizen, he drew inspiration from South Asia, the Arab world, and the Global South, making the QF-based museum that bears his name the perfect reflection of his legacy.
“M F Husain was a true polymath – a painter, a filmmaker, a photographer, a calligrapher, a designer,” says Kholoud al-Ali, executive director, Community Engagement and Programming at QF. “He was endlessly curious, and having a museum dedicated to his work within QF reflects our community development mission – a place where art becomes a pathway to discovery, to critical thinking, and to creative exploration.”
From its inception, the museum was imagined not as a closed institution, but as a living, inspirational environment open to all.
Whether you are a child visiting for the first time, a family spending a weekend together, a tourist passing through Doha, or a scholar with deep knowledge of Husain’s practice, there should be a way for you to connect with what is on display, according to al-Ali.
Within Education City, the museum thrives in a landscape defined by learning and exchange: a 12-square-kilometre ecosystem that brings together K-12 schools, QF’s homegrown Hamad Bin Khalifa University, international partner universities, research institutes, community facilities and programs, and major cultural institutions.
Besides, Lawh Wa Qalam: M F Husain Museum, Education City also houses Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, which holds the largest collection of modern and contemporary Arab art in the region and has been part of Education City since 2010, and the Media Majlis at QF partner university Northwestern University in Qatar – the Arab world’s first museum dedicated to media, journalism, and communication – sits within the same landscape.
Education City is also home to over 100 public artworks, including the Al Azzm sculpture, designed by Sheikh Hassan bin Mohammed al-Thani; Damien Hirst’s The Miraculous Journey at Sidra Medicine; and Louise Bourgeois’s Maman within Qatar National Convention Centre. It also houses Seeroo fi al ardh, Husain’s final and most ambitious artwork, which is now part of Lawh Wa Qalam: M F Husain Museum.
“When you place a museum dedicated to Husain inside this ecosystem, you are saying something important – that art is not separate from science, from research, from education. They all belong to the same landscape of human knowledge,” al-Ali says.
Husain’s works, from tributes to Nobel laureate Sir C V Raman to the visionary Seeroo fi al ardh, embody the dialogue between art, science, and history.
“Placing his museum here feels entirely right,” al-Ali says. “It is a living, inspirational institution, and Education City is the only context in which it could exist in this form.”
Accessibility is central to this mission. Entry to Lawh Wa Qalam M F Husain Museum is free, tours are offered in both Arabic and English, and audio guides are being developed for 2026. A dedicated family exhibit is being created to ensure children feel the museum belongs to them, while the immersive Art in Motion gallery offers an inviting entry point for those who may feel intimidated by traditional spaces.
