Mahbuba Maqsoodi

She began her teaching career in earnest, and taught Chemistry and Biology at an all girls high school. It was during this time that she, together with her older sister Afifa, became politically active. Both sisters were members of the youth wing of a political party, which primarily advocated for women’s rights in Afghanistan.

This event changed the course of Mahbuba’s life forever. She realised then that her life and that of her family’s was in immediate danger. As such, she, along with her husband Fazl Maqsoodi, began to actively pursue routes out of Afghanistan. Fortunately, they did not have to search for long, as both were granted artists scholarships by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Culture. They accepted the scholarships, and attended higher education institutions in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Here, Mahbuba and her husband completed their artists diplomas and doctorates in the arts (PhD).       

In the meantime, civil war continued to rage in Mahbuba’s native Afghanistan, preventing her from returning. Thus, for a second time, Mahbuba and her husband, who were now parents of two sons, were in search of refuge. After some trepidation, the young family arrived in Munich, Germany in 1994. Here, they were granted political asylum. In 2010, following a long-term illness, Fazl Maqsoodi passed away at the age of 60 in Munich, Germany.

Mahbuba Elham Maqsoodi’s artistic career began in 1973, when she started studying the art of Persian Miniature Paintings with Fazl Maqsoodi, whom she later married. At the time, Fazl himself was a master-class student of Ustad Mohammad Sayed’s (otherwise known as Mashal). Mashal’s organisation was famous across Iran and Afghanistan for its Behzadinian art of miniatures  (also known as the “torch of Behzadinian miniature tradition”).

Once married, the couple participated in group exhibitions in both Herat and Kabul. Mahbuba’s artistic expression called for attention, and one of her award winning miniatures was added to the collection of Kabul’s National Gallery.

From her early years, Mahbuba Elham Maqsoodi has been socially engaged and interested in women’s rights. In 2003, she founded the award winning association of “Afghan Women in Munich” (a membership corporation). The association’s mission is to support women refugees and their families to establish participation in society and to receive adequate information on their rights and duties. The female role in society is of utmost importance for Mahbuba: “if I don’t like something, I will change it. Sometimes unknowingly, but always naturally. I emancipated myself in Afghanistan, and I would like to make life for Afghan women easier.”

In Saint Petersburg, the official socialistic doctrine of arts meant that students had to strictly follow and adapt the so-called ‘Socialist Realism’. Furthermore, a free and independent way of artistic expression was declared Imperialistic Non-Culture. Artistic creations and imaginations were to follow the people (and therefore the socialist nation). In the end, the regime decided what the subject of art should be.

In 2018, Mahbuba Elham Maqsoodi participated and won an art competition to design 34 new windows for Germany’s oldest Benedict monastery in Tholey. It is worth noting that alongside Mahbuba, the artist Gerhard Richter has been contracted to design 3 of the windows of the Tholey project. In total, all of the new windows for Tholey are considered to be one of the most important projects in sacral architecture and art history in Germany. All of the windows have been fabricated at Bayerische Hofglasmalerei Gustav van Treeck (est. 1887) in Munich, and at Glasmalerei Frese in Saarbrücken.

On September 12, 2017, Mahbuba Maqsoodi presented her book “Der Tropfen weiß nichts vom Meer” (The drop knows nothing of the sea) to the public, which she wrote together with her close friend and editor Hanna Diederichs. The autobiographical work includes 77 short stories, divided into three episodes: Afghanistan, Russia, and Germany.

As a member for many years of the “Alliance of women’s associations in Munich”, her commitment to institutions like the “Munich advisory committee for foreigners” and the “Munich municipal council commission for integration”, has made a great contribution to the process of cultural and social integration. For her social engagement, she received the “Medal of Bavarian Constitution” in silver on December 16, 2013.

From 2012, she moved to create a whole cycle of new paintings in her own artistic language, style, and personal ductus, which gained great attention in 2017 with her solo exhibition “GlasKlar” at Munich’s Maximilianeum. Following her solo exhibition in 2017, she has established herself as a contemporary artist with own recognition value.

In the years between 2001 and 2012, Mahbuba Elham Maqsoodi’s artwork mainly focused on architectural based contractual orders. For her, it meant to professionally adapt the artistic language of the 19 century (Pre-Raphelite and Romanesque style).

In 1994, Dr. Fazl Maqsoodi had a solo exhibition at Gallery Goethe 53 in Munich, Germany. The exhibition was titled “Afghanistan on fire” . The exhibition took place in the same year that the couple and their two sons had immigrated to Munich and had received political asylum.

After the scholarships came to an end, there was no chance of return to Afghanistan. First signs of civil war were obvious, as such; the couple applied for postgraduate scholarships. The Ministry of Culture, for the purpose of research studies, approved both applications. In 1993, Mahbuba Elham Maqsoodi completed her studies at the Stieglitz Academy for Arts with a PhD in Art History. Her PhD thesis was entitled: “The tradition of ornaments in contemporary Afghan ceramics”.

In 1987, despite the socialistic doctrines and restrictions imposed, Mahbuba finished her scholarship with a final thesis at the faculty for ceramics and glass as the best student of the course. Additionally, her academic submission was added to the Academy’s Collection. As a result, both artists Mahbuba and Fazl Maqsoodi were able to hold an art exhibition, which opened on December 3, 1987 at Arseniy’s Morozov Villa, formerly “House of Friendship with Foreign Nations”.

In 1979, a member of one of the many Islamic terrorist organisations active in Afghanistan assassinated Afifa, Mahbuba’s elder sister, in broad daylight.

In 1979, Mahbuba and Fazl Maqsoodi received a scholarship from Afghanistan’s Ministry of Culture. Both artists were allowed a course of studies in a foreign country; this led them to Saint Petersburg, Russia. Mahbuba became a scholarship holder at Mukhina Academy of Arts (presently known as the Stieglitz Academy of Arts).

Mahbuba Elham Maqsoodi (born 1957 in Herat) is a German-Afghan artist, living and working in Munich, Germany.