Abd al-Jabbar bin Abd al-Karim al-Yahya (1931-2014), a Saudi artist, writer, translator, and art critic. The Saudi Arabian Society for Culture and Arts held a solo exhibition in 1974, after holding his first exhibition in 1971 in a residential neighborhood. For a group of artists outside the Kingdom in 1952, he founded with others the Alwan Group for Fine Arts, and he headed its board of directors.

His upbringing and life
Abdul-Jabbar Al-Yahya was born in the city of Al-Zubayr, Iraq, in 1931, in which he lived his childhood and started through four sources that had an impact on his artistic career, the first of which was his rioting by cutting black coal on the walls of his house. By practicing drawing, the second is his cousin, the great Nasser Saad Al-Kharji, who was a distinguished artist, sculptor, and intellectual at the time, and left a positive impact on Abdul-Jabbar. As for the last of those sources that polished his talent, it was the presence of the British camp for German and Italian soldiers during World War II near Al-Zubayr, and they used to flock to the village to draw minarets, Arab faces, and environmental buildings. Watercolor painting, and he moved to Bahrain at the age of six to work and try to continue his studies, but he was associated with work, and after a year and a half he moved to Saudi Arabia, his home country, to work in the city of Rahima in the Eastern Province, and edited a weekly page published by Al-Madinah Al-Munawwarah newspaper in 1951 AD for a year and a half, and after his return from The United States - where he completed his studies - settled in the city of Jeddah, working in the Air Force during the years 1952-1969 AD, and during that he was publishing some of his drawings in Al-Bilad and Al-Madina newspapers.

teach him
In the city of Al-Zubayr, he received his primary and intermediate education. During his studies, he showed great artistic abilities through which he found great encouragement from art education teachers. Al-Yahya was surrounded by a cultural atmosphere that contributed to the early flourishing of his culture. He was briefed on the works of great artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and others. He was one of the artists, and he used to imitate the works of the artists of the Renaissance and the Impressionists as a trainee and a student, so he excelled in transferring and simulating them, then he was sent to study electronics in the United States of America, then he completed his studies in Britain in 1975.

his business
Al-Yahya has held many personal exhibitions in addition to his internal and external participation, which counts in hundreds between design, drawing and plastic photography, which is the majority of his works, while his photographic works are usually based on two subjects, the first is heritage and the second is women, so he began photographing the animals and alleys in his city before the advent of oil and then He was influenced by the new culture after oil, and finally his work focused on women as a recurring element in his work, which differs in form and construction from the local heritage, but is of its flesh. Most of his works included human relations with the ocean, such as houses, palm trees, and the land.

his style
His orientations were influenced by the convictions he defends, and that the artistic work includes dimensions and meanings formed by the relationships of the elements, and the method of its formulation, and in that he benefited from surrealism, cubism, and symbolism, and he was acquainted with some Indian creations. composition, and asceticism in coloring, and Al-Yahya went through four overlapping stages for nearly four decades. In the first stage, Al-Yahya presented the human element and the surrounding environment as an example of this stage (the painting of Al-Muqibara Market). By presenting the human being in his work as a creative value. As for the fourth stage, he spent most of it outside the country. He varied in his use of surfaces, textures, and techniques, and his style was dominated by the abstract style, while the subject remained based on the human element, so the human being remained in the conscience of the goal, symbol, value, and civilization.

his death
He passed away on Friday 20 Ramadan 1435 AH corresponding to 18 July 2014 CE in the city of Riyadh.