Latif Al Ani and Iraqi Modernism (1940-1970)

A mustached man wearing a shirt and pants, with a box camera hanging from his neck, stands with one hand against the trunk of a large tree. In the background a field leads to mountains.
Four people surround a sculpture of a robed figure of indeterminate sex. One man squats on the sculpture's base, another man kneels slightly behind him at his right, and a man and a woman stand in the back behind the sculpture.
Portrait of a smiling man with a short curly hair
Five men in suits stand in front of ground that has been excavated. Structural supports have been placed around three sides of a rectangular area that extends from a wall at the far right.

Latif Al Ani:
Photographing Ancient and Modernist Iraq

A mustached man in a white shirt looks out the window of a car's half-open window.

Photographer unknown. Portrait of Latif Al Ani. Gelatin silver developing-out paper print. 1955. AIF: 0190an01973. Latif el Ani Collection © Courtesy of the Arab Image Foundation, Beirut.

Latif Al Ani (1932—2021) developed an early interest in photography by watching a local photographer named Nissan, who worked close to his brother’s shop in Baghdad. Seeing Latif’s fascination with capturing images, his brother gifted him his first camera while Nissan taught him the basics of photography. In 1953, Al Ani’s professional photography career took off when he was hired for Iraq Petroleum Company’s magazine Ahl al-Naft (People of Oil), and was taken under the wing of the magazine’s editor and photographer, Jack Percival.

The reproduction of a painting of four young women in a chariot decorated with geometric designs. Three of the women are seated, and one of them has her arms around a bull. A fourth woman stands with her arms around one side of a large triangular instrument with seven strings. The frame of the instrument is decorated with geometric designs.;The reproduction of a painting of a man in an orange jacket with a black cloth over his head. At his feet are a herd of sheep. In the distance is another figure. In the background, behind low trees or shrubs, is an oil derrick.

(Left) Ahl al-Naft, no. 23 (June 1953). (Right) Ahl al-Naft, no. 2
(September 1951). Courtesy of NYU Abu Dhabi.

Ahl al-Naft showcased the positive impacts of modernity in Iraq—from cars to modernist art—which were all thanks to the company’s extraction of oil. Al Ani’s photographs expertly captured the people, architecture, and art of Iraq in its golden age of modernity. He also photographed archaeological sites and monuments, often as a backdrop for Western tourists who were fascinated with the country’s ancient past. These visitors posed in fashionable yet impractical Western clothes or Bedouin “costumes,” displaying a distinctly orientalist perspective of Iraq and its people. However, Al Ani saw this contrast and coexistence of ancient and modern as a lens through which to document Iraq’s beauty and richness. His perspectives on archaeological sites such as Babylon and Ctesiphon included some of the first aerial photographs of these sites and contributed to a broader use of Mesopotamian motifs and architecture in the modernist movements in Iraq. Latif recalled that working at Ahl al-Naft gave him a sense of creative freedom; the magazine was also a platform for other Iraqi artists and members of the influential Baghdad Modern Art Group such as Jewad Selim and Khaled al-Rahal.

A man and a woman dressed in Middle Eastern robes stand in front of the ruins of a wall with blind arches and colonnades and an open ogival arch.
A pyramidal tower set on a terraced mound, with a supporting wall on the right.
Aerial photograph of a city. In the foreground a multilane highway leads around a circular open space, behind which is a monumental freestanding frieze depicting multiple dark figures in various poses against a white background.

However, after the 1958 Revolution, which overthrew King Faysal II, the increasing oppression by the Ba’athist government left Al Ani feeling disillusioned with his work. While he was appointed as a director at the Iraqi News agency in 1976, he increasingly came under pressure to pledge loyalty to the Ba’ath party—something he was not prepared to do. Around 1977 he felt he had no choice but to retire, as photography of any kind was becoming more dangerous under government scrutiny and he struggled to see any beauty in the country. This was particularly the case following the assassination of his uncle by Saddam Hussein and after witnessing the destruction of the places he had photographed as a young man over the successive conflicts in the region: the Iraq-Iran War (1980–1988), the Gulf Wars (1991–2003), and the Islamic State’s violent occupation of northern Iraq (2014–2019). His work remained little known internationally until a showing of his photographs in the 2015 Venice Biennale, where viewers were fascinated by the unique and elegant glimpses of Iraq’s rapidly forgotten age of modernism. Since then, Al Ani has become the subject of exhibitions, books, and a recent documentary (Iraq’s Invisible Beauty, 2021), which allowed him to see his work appreciated globally before his death in 2021.

A man wearing sunglasses, a coat, and a long scarf draped over his shoulders walks with his hands in his pockets along a street lined with the ruins of walls.
A man wearing sunglasses, a coat, pants, and a long scarf draped over his shoulders stands with his hands in his pockets in a street lined with rubble and the ruins of buildings.

Latif Al Ani visiting ruined buildings in Mosul. Courtesy of Jurgen Buedts and Sahim Omar Kalifa © 2022 LAS BELGAS.

Jewad Selim:
A New Iraqi Modernist Style

Four people surround a sculpture of a robed figure of indeterminate sex. One man squats on the sculpture's base, another man kneels slightly behind him at his right, and a man and a woman stand in the back behind the sculpture.

Jewad Selim (bottom left) and Lorna Selim (top right) with castings for the Freedom Monument. Kamil and Rifat Chadirji Photographic Archive, Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT. Image Courtesy of the Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT.

Jewad Selim (1919–1961) was born in Ankara, Turkey, during the final years of the Ottoman Empire, though his parents were both from Mosul in northern Iraq. He pursued an education in painting and sculpture, studying for a few years in Paris and Rome (1938–1940), before being forced to return to Iraq by the outbreak of World War II. During the war, he was appointed director of sculpture at the prestigious Fine Arts Institute in Baghdad and worked at the Directorate of Antiquities, where he was inspired by the collections of Mesopotamian sculpture and reliefs. After the war he was able to return to Europe, and in 1946 took a place at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, where he met his wife Lorna, who was a painter and musician.

Selim’s time in Europe was hugely influential and exposed him to different modernist art movements. Upon returning to Iraq, he sought a visual language that could define a new, authentic Iraqi identity. He found this authenticity in a synthesis of modernist concepts such as minimalism and abstraction with Mesopotamian and Islamic iconography. In this way he saw Iraqi modernism as a direct development from Iraq’s ancient past, rather than an export of Western modernism. He explored this style further through the Baghdad Modern Art Group, which he helped found in 1951, quickly becoming a leading figure in the Iraqi art scene.

Oblique view of a monumental freestanding frieze depicting multiple dark figures in various poses against a white background. The frieze is elevated from the ground by a tall trapezoidal support at each end.

Latif Al Ani. Baghdad, Jewad Selim's Freedom Monument at Tahrir Square. Gelatin silver negative on cellulose acetate film. 1961. AIF: 0190an00044. ISAW Checklist No. 84. Latif el Ani Collection © Courtesy of the Arab Image Foundation, Beirut.

Selim’s Iraqi modernism is exemplified by his most famous work, the Freedom Monument at Tahrir Square in central Baghdad, which was also the first Iraqi public monument made by an Iraqi artist. Selim worked with architect Rifat Chadirji, who built a standing white stone canvas for Selim to fill with a linear series of fourteen bronze friezes. These friezes narrate and celebrate the events of the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958. The frieze’s composition, read from right to left in the manner of Arabic script, alludes to the rolled-out scenes of Mesopotamian cylinder seals. The scenes blend modernist abstracted forms with Mesopotamian and Islamic motifs such as the crescent moon. Although Selim died in 1961, before the monument was completed, it continues to be a striking landmark of Baghdad and was captured in a number of photographs by Latif Al Ani.

Khaled al-Rahal:
Monuments of Modernism

Portrait of a smiling man with a short curly hair

Portrait of Khaled al-Rahal. Date unknown. Courtesy of Azzawi Archive, London.

Mesopotamia was always a source of inspiration for Khaled al-Rahal (1926–1987), an artist who was born into a poor family in Baghdad.  When the Iraq Museum opened in 1936, he became a regular visitor and found great enjoyment in the Mesopotamian statues and reliefs at his young age.

After World War II, he obtained a scholarship to study art in Rome, experiencing the flourishing modernist art movements there. Upon returning to Iraq, he studied sculpture at the Baghdad Institute of Fine Arts under the supervision of Jewad Selim. Like Selim, al-Rahal did not want to merely replicate Western modernist movements, but instead create something that spoke to a modern Iraqi identity. He drew on his childhood interest in Mesopotamian sculpture to create works that blended ancient forms and iconography with the abstracted modernist forms. After graduating in 1947, his style was also shaped by his experience working at the Iraq Museum, where he created replicas and reconstructions of ancient objects such as the head of Queen Puabi of Ur. Many of the modernist Iraqi artists in the 1950s worked at the museum, which commissioned them to produce murals and reconstructions of iconic Mesopotamian objects.

Two man stand to the left of a statue with a bull head

Khaled al-Rahal working on an installation. Date unknown. Courtesy of Azzawi
Archive, London.

Al-Rahal quickly became another leading figure in the Iraqi modernist art movement and joined Selim in the Baghdad Modern Art Group in 1953. He was one of the few artists who flourished in Iraq after the 1958 Revolution, when the Ba’ath party became increasingly oppressive. Because his work heavily utilized Iraqi, Islamic, and Mesopotamian iconography, al-Rahal was commissioned by the Ba’athist government for a number of propagandistic artworks to beautify Baghdad, including murals portraying Saddam Hussein as a victorious Mesopotamian king and a bronze sculpture of the historic Abbasid caliph Abu Jafar al-Mansur (founder of Baghdad). However, al-Rahal was also interested in capturing subjects relating to the everyday life of Iraqis that reflected his childhood in Baghdad. Public sculptures such as the Motherhood Monument (1961) celebrated the concept of motherhood and ordinary people, with the abstracted form of a mother shielding her child while gazing to the horizon and the future.

A standing figure emerges from a concave, roughly rectangular piece of stone. The sculpture stands on a square base set in a circular, water-filled pool.

Khaled al-Rahal’s Motherhood Monument in Umma Park, Baghdad. Photographed by Latif Al Ani, ca. 1961. AIF: 0190an00612 ISAW No. 80. Latif el Ani Collection © Courtesy of the Arab Image Foundation, Beirut.

Hisham Munir:
Building Modernism

Five men in suits stand in front of ground that has been excavated. Structural supports have been placed around three sides of a rectangular area that extends from a wall at the far right.

Hisham Munir (center) with American architect Walter Gropius (second from the right) at the University of Baghdad in 1959. Courtesy of Hisham Munir.

Hisham Munir (b. 1930), like many of the early Iraqi modernists, began his career studying abroad. Graduating from the University of Texas in 1953 and the University of South California in 1956, this education immersed Munir in modernist architectural movements, which emphasized functionality, minimalism of forms, and the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete. His education in the US was pivotal to his future career, as it built relationships with American architects such as Walter Gropius and architectural firms like the Architects Collaborative who would later work with him on projects such as the University of Baghdad campus.

Partial, oblique view of a building with lattice-screen windows.

Photograph of Munir’s Endowment (Awqaf) Office by Latif Al Ani. AIF: 0190an00145 ISAW No 3. Latif el Ani Collection © Courtesy of the Arab Image Foundation, Beirut.

A three-story structure with an open first level whose columns support the upper levels. The second and third levels have lattices that alternate with windows. The roof extends over all three levels. One man stands on the first level, while a second man approaches. To the right are three trees in a rectangular plot of grass. To the right is text in Arabic and English:

Drawing of Munir’s Awqaf Building with description in English and Arabic. In Hisham Munir & Assoc. Baghdad-Iraq. Project portfolio, Hisham Munir & Assoc., Printed by Remzi Est, Baghdad. Undated, ca. 1960s. Hisham Munir Archive, Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT. Image courtesy of the Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT and Hisham Munir.

At the left is a photo of a three-story building with the second and third levels extending over the first. The first story has small horizontally rectangular windows arranged in a row. The other two levels have lattices that alternate with windows. To the right of the image are two models of the building, shown in an oblique view and sited in a courtyard.

Photo and model of Munir’s Awqaf Building. In Hisham Munir & Assoc. Baghdad-Iraq. Project portfolio, Hisham Munir & Assoc., Printed by Remzi Est, Baghdad. Undated, ca. 1960s. Hisham Munir Archive, Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT. Image courtesy of the Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT and Hisham Munir.

Munir returned to Baghdad in 1957 to establish his own company (Hisham Munir and Associates) and set up the school of architecture at Baghdad University in 1959 along with fellow modernist architects Mohamed Makiya and Abdullah Ihsan Kamel. Munir’s designs intertwined Islamic and Mesopotamian forms with the minimalist, sculptural shapes of modernist architecture. This Iraqi modernist style can be seen through the abstracted Islamic style window screens in the Awqaf Building or the tapering and stepped form of a Mesopotamian ziggurat at the Baghdad Agricultural Museum. These interplays between past and present were rooted in the architectural and artistic traditions of Iraq, and proved to be popular in establishing a new national architectural style that departed from the British colonial neoclassical style. Munir’s projects went on to win numerous awards, and his buildings transformed Iraq’s cityscapes, earning him the nickname “The Builder of Baghdad.”

Oblique view of a multistory building with terraces on the two visible sides. An open-air saw-toothed roof is at the lower left.

Photograph of the El Rawaf Building by Latif Al Ani. AIF: 0190an01216. ISAW Checklist No. 4. Latif el Ani Collection © Courtesy of the Arab Image Foundation, Beirut.

Drawing of a multilevel building with wrap-around balconies on each floor. To the left of the drawing is text in Arabic and English

Illustration of the El-Rawaf Building with description in English and Arabic. In Hisham Munir & Assoc. Baghdad-Iraq. Project portfolio, Hisham Munir & Assoc., Printed by Remzi Est, Baghdad. Undated, ca. 1960s. Hisham Munir Archive, Aga Khan Documentation Center at MIT. Image courtesy of the Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT and Hisham Munir.

Despite his success and the Ba’ath party’s voracious appetite for his monumental modernist designs, the increasing governmental oppression pushed Munir to leave Iraq. He closed his company in 1996 and relocated with his family to the USA, where he was warmly received by his colleagues and continues to live today. While Munir witnessed many of his buildings damaged or destroyed in the successive conflicts in Iraq, a number of his works still stand in Baghdad today.

The first floor of a brick building inset with vertical wooden slats and a single door.
Brick building with slatted-wooden doors on the first floor and a cantilevered wooden extension with a louvered window on the second.
Oblique view of a brick building with wooden cantilevered extensions on the second and third floors. A brick patio extends to shrubbery on the left. In the background is a brick wall, behind which are trees and another building.

Photographs of Munir’s Villa in Baghdad. Photographed by Latif Al Ani, 1960. AIF: 0190an00253, 0190an00269, 0190an00268. ISAW Checklist Nos. 9, 10, 11.

HishamMunir_portrait_2023_a

Portrait of Hisham Munir. Courtesy of Hisham Munir.

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