IN DISCUSSION
signed in Arabic Nadira lower left
mixed media on canvas
76 x 50.5cm; 30 x 20in
88 x 62cm; 34 3/4 x 24 1/2in (framed)

Painted in 2011

Sold with a Certificate of Authenticity from the Family

Property from a Private Collection, UK

Provenance
By descent from the artist to the present owner

Born in Mosul, Nadira Azzouz studied fine art at the School of Domestic Fine Arts in Baghdad from 1944-49, and at the Central School of Art in London from 1957-60, where she gained a BA in Painting. In 1960 Azzouz staged her first solo show in Baghdad, and became an active member of the Society of Iraqi Plastic Arts. Azzouz actively progressed her artistic training by studying still life and freehand in Cambridge, before moving to Beirut to raise her children.

Like many Iraqi artists of her generation who had studied abroad, often in the West, Azzouz’s artistic practice was informed by the canon of 20th century international modernism. Concurrently, Azzouz’s oeuvre carries a distinctively Iraqi identity, as seen in the influence of ancient Iraqi sculptural forms, as well as medieval Arab illuminated manuscripts and the folklorish motifs of handicrafts, rugs and textiles of her homeland.