Footnotes

PHASE 1: THE BIRTH OF THE BAGHDAD MODERN GROUP

1951 marked the point when Iraq's two most prominent artists, Jewad Selim and his student Shakir Hassan Al-Said, formed the countries first bona fide modern art movement; The Baghdad Group of Modern Art, through its manifesto, membership, and numerous exhibitions would come to signify a "golden age" in Iraqi modernism.

Shakir Hassan Al-Said is often regarded as the theoretical dynamo of the movement; more vocal and prolific in his written output than Selim, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra comments that "no Iraqi artist has written about art in general, and about the artists reflections on his own work in particular, as much as Shaker Hassan Al Said".

The Baghdad group was defined by an attempt to reconcile the grand visual legacy of the past within the contemporary cultural and nationalistic narrative of twentieth century Iraq. Mesopotamian iconography and Islamo-Arabic cultural motifs were combined with popular modern folk imagery; the high flown formal rigidity of ancient rock reliefs met the convoluted urban landscape of modern Baghdad, populated with the humorous and extravagant characters of daily life, all coming together to form a unique amalgamated aesthetic that reflected the evolving patchwork of Iraqi culture at the time.

Light hearted and boisterous, Al Said and Selim's depictions reveled in the rich and florid aesthetic of the Baghdad Street. The first group of the following set of works are a quintessential example of this.

Making use of popular folklore and well known tales such as episodes from 1001 Nights or Al-Wasiti's famed miniature paintings (Lots 72, 73, 77), Al Said mixes these literary memes with images from urban and rural Iraqi life; the roosters (Lot 76), fishermen (Lot 79), labourers (Lot 80), and colourful characters that populated the artists surroundings. This exemplifies the aim of the Baghdad Group's agenda, which was to depict an art which engaged the people, and which was reflective of their collective experience.

In using a rich and uplifting Expressionist palette, and the visual language of the cubists, Al-Said's compositions assume qualities and characteristics above and beyond the mere representational; by stressing vibrant colours and an angular anatomies, Al-Said forges a "stylized universe", an imagined Iraq where mythology, folk tradition and daily life blend into one harmonious whole.