rafa nasiri

b. 1940, Tikrit, Iraq.

d. 2013, Amman, Jordan.

Rafa al-Nasiri was a contemporary Iraqi artist, working in painting, draught-making, educating, writing, and printmaking. His works drawing cues from modern art and Arabic script and culture, with largely social and political themes, positively resonated with the public in Iraq, especially in the 20th century. In addition, he was known for encouraging young and upcoming artists to take up printmaking. 

Al-Nasiri first studied art at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad and received a Diploma in Painting in 1959. He then moved to Beijing to begin his studies in printmaking at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in China from 1959 to 1963. Here, he developed an interest in calligraphy, under the guidance of Huang Yu Yi, and began to incorporate Arabic script in his artworks. This made him one of the forerunners of the art style known as ‘hurufiyya’. Moving to Lisbon, Portugal, to supplement his skills in printmaking at the Gravura with a Gulbenkian Foundation scholarship, he came across the work of contemporary European artists – and was influenced by especially the work of Georges Mathieu, who also included calligraphy in his work. 

During the 1970s, al-Nasiri, was part of a wave of Iraqi artists who instigated the pan-Arab modern art movement. He was a co-founder of Baghdad’s New Vision Group (formed in the 1960s), whose aim was to encourage artists, within the context of culture and heritage, to broaden their horizons and look for inspirations in many places, allowing them to exercise greater freedom and allowing experimentation. He was a co-founder of many such groups. 

Al-Nasiri taught painting, graphic art and graphic design at the Institute of Fine Art Baghdad (from 1964), Yarmouk University in Jordan (1974-1989), and at the University of Bahrain (1997=2003). In the early 1990’s he helped found and was the inaugural Director to the Darat al Funun in Jordan, which was a studio, where he held exhibitions and continued his educational venture by running courses. 

Rafa al-Nasiri’s involving in the printmaking and encouraging and educating on the practice means that he is considered, to this day, in influencing subsequent generations in the art, while also curating a strong tradition of Iraqi printmaking.