Sharpening pencils…
Sharpening pencils…
The Iraqi artists the textbook skipped — a starter reading list, from 13th-century Baghdad to now.
15 artists
يحيى الواسطي
Illustrated the Maqamat al-Hariri in Baghdad in 1237 — the founding image-bank of Arab painting.
مديحة عمر
A pioneer of hurufiyya — turning the Arabic letter into pure abstraction, decades before it was a movement.
فائق حسن
Founded the Société Primitive (al-Ruwwad) and taught generations of painters at the Institute of Fine Arts.
جواد سليم
Co-founded the Baghdad Group for Modern Art in 1951 and made Nasb al-Hurriyah, the Freedom Monument in Tahrir Square.
شاكر حسن آل سعيد
Philosopher-painter of walls, letters and Sufi silence; launched the One Dimension group in 1971.
نزيهة سليم
Painted the women of rural Iraq with tenderness and colour; a member of al-Ruwwad.
لورنا سليم
Sheffield-born, Baghdad-made: painted the city’s alleys and shanasheel for decades.
محمود صبري
Went from political realism to “Quantum Realism” — painting the atomic structure of things.
محمد غني حكمت
Gave Baghdad its public storytellers in bronze: Kahramana, Shahrazad and Shahryar.
كاظم حيدر
His 1965 series “The Epic of the Martyr” turned Karbala into modernist theatre.
إسماعيل فتاح الترك
Designed the split turquoise dome of the Martyr’s Monument (al-Shaheed), Baghdad, 1983.
ضياء العزاوي
Co-founded the New Vision group (1969); his Sabra and Shatila drawing is one of the century’s great anti-war works.
رافع الناصري
Brought modern printmaking to Iraq after studying in Beijing and Lisbon; taught it to everyone.
زها حديد
Baghdad-born; the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize (2004). Made buildings that refuse right angles.
هناء مال الله
Her “ruins technique” burns, tears and layers material to record what war does to objects.