This thesis explores the life and work of the Kuwaiti artist Khalifa Qattan (1934-2003). The first chapter views Qattan in the context of twentieth-century visual culture in Kuwait. It also shows the European influence on his work, as he lived and studied in Britain in the 1950s. A second chapter is dedicated to Qattan's aesthetic theory called Circulism; it shows that it is a philosophy and a style, and situates Circulism between western and Arabic sources. The third chapter deals with the Gulf War of 1991 as a particular topic in Qattan's work, and compares his work about the war with the work of John Keane, the British artist who was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum as an official recorder to cover that war. Considering western and Arabic writings on the war, this chapter argues that different visual interpretations of the war are rooted in an 'insider' and 'outsider' experience. A conclusion discusses the general problems involved when viewing non-western visual cultures with western eyes. An appen
