Mohammed Ghani Hikmat

Mohammed Ghani Hikmat was born in Baghdad, Iraq, on April 20, 1929. He was a descendant of a prominent political family that played a central role in Iraq's independence and democracy. His father, Kamil Chadirji, was the founder and president of the National Democratic Party. Hikmat graduated from the Fine Arts Institute in Baghdad in 1953, before completing his studies in 1957 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, Italy. He spent seven years in Italy, where he also studied bronze casting at the Instituto di Zaka in Florence. While in Rome, he sculpted the wooden gates for the Church of Tista de Libra, becoming the first Muslim sculptor to produce work for the Catholic Church. On his return to Baghdad in 1961, he found a city that had undergone substantial change. The King had been deposed and killed in a military coup in July 1958, and several coups followed culminating in the rise of the Ba'ath Party in 1968. Hikmat continued to work, teaching at the Institute of Fine Arts, the Academy of Fine Arts and at the Department of Architectural Engineering at Baghdad University. Hikmat was very active in Iraq's arts community, especially through his involvement in a number of art groups. He joined Al-Ruwad (The Pioneers), Iraq's first art group, formed by Iraqi painter, Faiq Hassan in the 1930s; the Jama’et Baghdad lil Fen al-Hadith (Baghdad Group for Modern Art) in 1953 and the Al-Zawiya Group ( The Angle or The Corners) in 1967. These groups attempted to incorporate local phenomena into their artworks in a variety of ways. The Pioneers group rejected the artificial atmosphere of the artist’s studio and encouraged artists to engage with the local landscape and traditional Iraqi life. The Baghdad Modern Art Group wanted to connect modern art with traditional art of the 13th-century (in the manner of the Baghdad School ). The philosophy behind Iraq's early art groups was the desire to connect Iraq's ancient art traditions with international trends in a way that contributed to a truly national Iraqi visual language. Hikmat embraced these ideals within his own work, drawing subject matter and stylistic inspiration from medieval Islamic art and literature, as well as from Mesopotamian figuration. A number of his most famous works represent subjects from the well-known collection of Arab folktales, One Thousand and One Nights. One such work is The Fountain of Kahramana that depicts the heroine pouring oil into jars occupied by a number of Ali Baba's forty thieves. Another is the sculptural duet of Scheherazade and Shahrayar (1971). In this representation of the main characters of 1001 Nights, the figures are rendered with robust monumentality and strong, sinuous forms that harken back to Assyrian statuary. Hikmat was also a prolific writer, photographer, and educator. He wrote several books and articles on architecture, urbanism, and culture, such as Concepts and Influences: Towards a Regionalized International Architecture, The Changing Rural Habitat, and The Architecture of Iraq in the Third Millennium. He also documented the traditional and modern buildings of Iraq through his photographs, which he collected in his archive. He taught architecture at the Baghdad University and the American University of Beirut. He was also involved in various cultural and political activities, such as founding the Baghdad Modern Art Group, the International Union of Architects, and the Iraqi Democratic Forum. He received several awards and honors for his work, such as the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the Iraqi Order of Merit, and the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He died in Baghdad, Iraq, on September 12, 2011, at the age of 82. He is regarded as one of the most influential Iraqi sculptors and artists of the 20th century.