The exhibit uses many methods to tell ancient Arabia's story, including a giant spice rack that gives visitors a chance to smell the many spices and fragrances for which the region is known. It includes paintings and drawings by some of Yemen's best contemporary artists and photos of present-day Yemen, and is accompanied by a 144-page catalog with essays by Schulz, Foster and others.
In an entertaining chapter about Foster's year as physician to Yemen's last king, he paints the king as a powerful, childlike man who kept slaves and imprisoned enemies but delighted in American products such as Polaroid cameras and dye for his beard. According to Foster, he weighed more than 300 pounds, had a bullet embedded in one arm from an assassination attempt, was addicted to morphine and rarely rose from a large mattress in the middle of one room - sort of a male version of Edith the Egg Lady in her playpen.
Foster, who is 80, went on to write extensively about archaeology and serve as president and chief executive of the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute from 1987 to 1993. He acquired most of the Yemen artifacts, incidentally, not while he was there but from Sotheby's in London, years after the king died and he had moved to a new calling.
In the catalog, Foster credits "the king of Yemen and the Walters Art Museum" with igniting his twin passions for archaeology and antiquities. Thanks to the Fosters' gift and Schulz's thoughtful way of putting it in perspective, all of the museum's visitors can now gain a better understanding of this colorful, faraway world - without hopping on a camel.
ed.gunts@baltsun.com
If you go
Faces of Ancient Arabia: The Giraud & Carolyn Foster Collection of South Arabian Art runs through Sept. 7 at the Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. Admission is free. thewalters.org.
