Iraq’s Forgotten MODERN Art
by Anayat Durrani

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When art and Iraq are mentioned in the same sentence it is more often than not in the context of Iraq’s ancient art and antiquities. But far beyond the art of ancient Mesopotamia, is a rich culture of modern Iraqi art.

Contemporary Iraq has played a prominent role in the region as a leader in painting and sculpture. Beginning in the middle of the 20th century, Iraq was host to several regional and international cultural events. From these events blossomed precious works of art that became the permanent collection of the Iraqi Museum of Modern Art, formerly known as the Saddam Center for the Arts.

“Fine art in pre-occupation Iraq was thrilling since the sixties and seventies,” says Dr. Hashim Al-Tawil, Professor of Art History at Henry Ford College in Michigan and former Iraqi active artist and faculty member of the college of Fine Arts at the University of Baghdad.

Dr. Al-Tawil said that Baghdad was the center of art activities on a national and international scale for over three decades, from the period of 1960-1990. Arab art Biennials, international exhibits and conferences, and national annual exhibits were commonplace in Iraq all year long.

“It [fine art] was hindered temporarily by the Iraq-Iran war (1980-1988), but was not affected substantially,” Dr. Al-Tawil told Fine Art Registry (FAR). “That cultural activity was severely wounded by the US bombing of 1990-91 followed by 13 years of brutal sanctions and isolation ended by the US-British invasion of 2003 which has paralyzed every cultural activity in the country.”

Dr. Al-Tawil said that the most prominent Iraqi artists left the country and more are still leaving to take refuge in neighboring Arab countries. He said many live and work and have exhibits in Amman, Damascus, and major cities in the Gulf countries, but not in Baghdad. He said a few live in Iraq but without any significant activity.

“Most pioneer Iraqi artists passed away in the eighties and nineties. Ismail Fattah al-Turk, the creator of the Martyr monument in Baghdad, which was occupied by the US army and turned into a military camp, died shortly after the invasion. Mohammed Ghani Hikmet, another prominent Iraqi sculptor moved to Amman, Jordan, where he works actively.”

Dr. Nada Shabout is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of North Texas and is known as one of the world's leading authorities on contemporary Iraqi art. She told FAR that the long years of sanctions and current situation in Iraq left many of Iraq's well-established artists “trapped under debilitating conditions.” Despite this, she says the College of Fine Arts and the Fine Arts Institution continued to teach classes that were generally headed by Iraq's most prominent artists.

“Because of the financial restraints in Iraq under sanctions and the deterioration of State patronage in the form of organized exhibitions, project sponsoring and purchasing works by the Saddam Center for the Arts (renamed today as Iraq's Museum of Modern Art) which was an all-encompassing institution that handled the arts and the artists, a large number of the younger artists fled the country,” says Dr. Shabout.

Some went to neighboring Jordan at first, but then many were able to get opportunities in Europe and elsewhere. Most others left for various reasons, she said, but particularly after 2003 because of the worsened conditions in Iraq where they were unable to work because of the violence, lack of electricity, expense of material and impossibility of mobility, or because their lives were threatened. She said before 2003, all artists had their own studios.

“One of the most popular misconceptions regarding Saddam's rule is that his general policy applied to the arts as well. Ironically Iraqi artists who throughout the 20th century were active in creating a national Iraqi visual culture were not traditionally known to produce politically active works of art,” explains Dr. Shabout. “They will all tell you that Saddam did not really affect what they created. They were mostly left alone to develop their art.”

She said under Saddam Hussein, artists could benefit financially if they produced a presidential portrait, statue or executed a State commission or if they were chosen as official artists to be Iraq's art representatives internationally. However, she said most established artists did not choose to do so and were still able to produce their work. “He actually appreciated the progressive and mature work of Iraqi artists as one of the leading movements in the region,” adds Dr. Shabout.

The year 2004 was a dark one for Iraqi art in that it saw the loss of several of Iraq’s most prominent artists: Shakir Hassan Al Said, who had gone through a fatal depression caused by the deteriorating conditions of life in Iraq during the 1990s; Ismail Fattah al-Turk, who designed the Shaheed (Martyr) Monument (the split turquoise dome) returned to die in Baghdad after battling cancer; Ceramicist Nuha al-Radi (author of the Baghdad Diaries) died of leukemia that she and many believed resulted from the hundreds of tons of depleted uranium the allies fired at Iraqi tanks during the 1991 war. Another major Iraqi artist to pass away in Iraq in 2005 was the caricaturist Moaid Nama.

“Other than an article in The Guardian about al-Radi, nothing about the death of these artists made the news,” says Dr. Shabout.

Destruction of Iraqi Museum of Modern Art

Sparse media attention has focused on what has happened to artwork missing and stolen from the Iraqi Museum of Modern Art in Baghdad, which was damaged by fire and looting after bombings in 2003. The museum contained thousands of works from the late 19th century to the early months of 2003, including paintings, sculptures, ceramics, calligraphy, and other priceless pieces. Looters cut canvases from frames using the wood for fuel; sculptures were used as birdcages; and works were sold on the black market for a couple of hundred dollars. Dr. Shabout described the museum as one “the world seems to have forgotten” as little attention has focused on it since. The museum’s collection represented the entire history of modern Iraqi art. So far, about 1,500-1,600 of the 8,000 originals missing from the modern art museum have been retrieved, Dr. Shabout says. These have been recovered mainly by the efforts of individuals.

Dr. Shabout has taken it upon herself to document artwork missing and stolen from the museum. When she began her search she first contacted Interpol, but quickly discovered that no one was searching for the missing artwork. Artwork could not be proven missing from the museum without proper documentation, but archival listings were also lost. [This is where the lack of a system such as the Fine Art Registry tagging and central database registration really shows up glaringly. If these pieces had been tagged and registered prior to the museum’s destruction, the job would now be so much easier. Ed.]

To make a record of the precious art lost by the modern art museum, she has resorted to searching for existing photographs of the art. The photos will be placed in a catalog that will include the titles, artist names, dates and any other information she can find.

Dr. Shabout earned a $10,000 grant from the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq, which took her to Jordan to continue her efforts to document the missing work. Presently, Dr. Shabout has collected more than 500 images of the missing pieces but has not finished authentication and compiling yet. While she admits her documentation project is time consuming, as an art lover of Iraqi descent, it is a project she holds very dear to her heart. She says the documentation will help keep the memory of Iraqi modern art alive.

“It is important to record the lost works because it is part of humanity’s history of art,” says Dr. Shabout. “And, because it constitutes Iraq's history of modern art, which is an important historical document, and one that particularly presents the 1950s visual efforts to construct an Iraqi national identity by Iraqi artists through creating a national visual language.”

In Part 2 in this series on Iraq, we will spotlight several Iraqi modern artists, some still living and working in Iraq and others forced to relocate outside their homeland due to current conditions in their country.

— Anayat Durrani | January 31, 2007

Read the series:
• Iraq's Forgotten Modern Art
• Introducing Iraq Contemporary Artists
• Starting Over: Exiled Iraqi Artist Ghassan Ghaib
• Resilience: Esam Pasha - First Iraqi Artist to Register his Work with FAR

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