The Eleventh International Calligraphy Competition organized by IRCICA was launched in 2018 and finalized in 2019. Its results were announced at a press conference held at IRCICA headquarters on 20 April 2019. The winning works were displayed at IRCICA and later also elsewhere on different occasions. 613 calligraphers from 38 countries participated in this competition. Awards were distributed to 52 calligraphers from 11 countries, namely Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Turkey and Yemen.
Following IRCICA’s tradition to dedicate each competition to an eminent master of this art, the eleventh competition was dedicated to master calligrapher Mehmed Shawqi Efendi (1829-1887), who is known for his distinct style in writing thuluth, naskh and riq’a. He worked in the Secretariat of the Ministry of Defense of the Ottoman State and also taught calligraphy in military schools of Istanbul. The exercise books for the thuluth and naskh scripts that he prepared and used in his teaching were published by IRCICA in 1999.
This catalogue contains the photographs of the award-winning works in each category of style of the competition: Jaly thuluth, Thuluth, Naskh, Muhaqqaq, Thuluth naskh, Jaly taliq, Taliq, Jaly diwani, Diwani, and Kufi.
