UNTITLED
signed and dated Ismail Fattah 2002 in English and Arabic and numbered 14/60 in pencil lower margin
lithograph on Arches paper with full margins
38.5 x 30cm; 15 1/4 x 11 3/4in
65.5 x 50.5; 25 3/4 x 19 3/4in (visible sheet)
69.5 x 54.4cm; 27 1/2 x 21 1/2in (framed)

Property of a Lady, Berkshire

Provenance
Hadba Nizar Kabbani (acquired from the artist)
Thence by descent to the present owner

Ismael Fattah Al Turk (born Basra, Iraq) studied painting and sculpture in Baghdad and Rome, later teaching ceramics and sculpture at Baghdad's Academy of Fine Arts until the 1990s. He played an active role in promoting Iraqi and Arab art, serving as president of the Society of Iraqi Artists and founding the New Vision group in response to the 1967 Arab defeat, championing pan-Arab cultural unity. Influenced by mentor Jewad Selim, Fattah worked across painting and sculpture, often exploring human emotion and abstraction through pared-down forms and facial features.

Among his most notable works are public sculptures commissioned for Baghdad, including the famed Nasb al-Shaheed (Martyrs’ Monument) created in 1983, which has become a symbol of modern Iraqi visual culture.

Fattah held solo and group exhibitions, displaying both sculpture and painting, in Rome, Baghdad, London and Beirut. These include the Arts Culture Palace, 1963, Modern Artists Gallery, 1964 and Laurina Gallery, Rome, 1965; National Museum of Modern Art and Al-Wasiti Gallery, Baghdad, 1965; Twelve Arab Artists, Galerie Faris, Paris, 1980; Contemporary Arab Artists I, Iraqi Cultural Center, London, 1978; Venice Biennale, 1976; Kufa Gallery, London, 1988; and National Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Kinda Foundation, Saudi Arabia; Darat Al-Funun and Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman and Museum of Modern Art, Baghdad.

The hardships following the Gulf War led him to darker artistic themes, reflecting Iraq’s struggles. After relocating to Qatar in the late 1990s, he began work on The Guardian of the Fertile Crescent for Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art. Fattah died in Baghdad in 2004 after battling cancer. His legacy endures both in his influential role in Middle Eastern art and through his final sculpture, completed posthumously in Doha.