Iraq
Art from Iraq, from Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian works and Abbasid book painting to the Baghdad Group and modern monuments.
No works indexed yet · 10 related artists
No open-access works for Iraq are in the index yet. They will appear here as more collections are indexed.
About
Much of the world's earliest art and writing came from Mesopotamia. Sumerian worshippers at Tell Asmar left statues with wide, staring eyes, the Standard of Ur shows war and feasting in shell and lapis lazuli, and Assyrian kings lined palace halls at Nineveh with reliefs of lion hunts. Under the Abbasids, Baghdad became a centre of learning, and in 1237 the painter al-Wasiti illustrated al-Hariri's Maqamat with lively scenes of daily life.
Modern Iraqi art took shape around mid-century. Faiq Hassan and the Pioneers painted outdoors, and in 1951 Jewad Selim and Shakir Hassan Al Said founded the Baghdad Group for Modern Art to join modernism with Mesopotamian and Islamic heritage. Selim's bronze Monument of Freedom in Baghdad's Tahrir Square was completed in 1961. Al Said later made Arabic letters the heart of abstract painting, and Dia Azzawi and Ahmed Alsoudani carry this dialogue on.
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