Conway Library’s photography collection goes digital, sharing rare images of Middle East – The National

Conway Library’s photography collection goes digital, sharing rare images of Middle East – The National

London’s Courtauld Institute of Art has opened up its internationally-renowned collection of photographs to the public. It worked with 14,000 volunteers over five years to digitise more than one million images from The Conway Library.

Among them are images that offer a striking glimpse of the Middle East in the mid-20th century.

The photographs, in crisp black and white, depict Yazidi celebrations in Lalish in Iraq's Kurdistan, refugees from Palestine making bread in Beirut, the Bedouin of Jordan, as well as landmarks such as Aleppo’s Grand Mosque, Mosul’s Great Mosque of al-Nuri and a medieval Armenian castle in the Adana region of Turkey.