SHAKiR HASSAN EL SAID

b. 1925, Samawah, Iraq. 

d. 2004, Baghdad, Iraq. 

Shakir Hassan al-Said – painter, sculptor and writer – is considered in key, innovative figure in the Iraqi modern arts scene. His work is scene as a means of his spiritual reflection. Active in the arts scene, he co-founded two vital art groups that molded modern Iraqi arts and joined the gap between modernity and heritage. His theories on regional art had a uniquely Arabic viewpoint, as opposed to the usual Western-centric views. 

From 1955 to 1959, Al-Said studied at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His early works showed influence from avant-garde modern European art movements – especially expressionism and cubism. Additionally, he married these two concepts by incorporating his Arabic heritage and popular culture in his compositions. The 1960s onwards, he engrossed himself in Sufism, and started to integrate Arabic letters in his art. Traditional Islamic-Arabic calligraphy was bounded by the strict nature of the rules, and he was an important influences in freeing it from the constraints of traditions and applying it to his abstract works.