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This Spring, Sotheby's presents its bi-annual Modern & Contemporary Middle East sale with a focus on important Modernist and contemporary avant-garde artists from the regions encompassing North Africa, Turkey, Iran, and the Middle East. Comprising seventy lots, this sale is led by two private collections, both of which were put together for the most part in the 1970s, and with a focus on modern Iranian and Iraqi masters respectively. To discuss the sequence of Modern Iraqi works included in the sale from the Collection of Walid Al Damirji, we meet the renowned designer Walid Damirji himself, to discuss design, Iraqi heritage, the Modern Iraqi artists so beloved by his family and why their work and ideas resonate to this day.
W alid Al-Damirji is an acclaimed fashion designer, with a passion for recovering and reappropriating vintage and antique textiles for use in his thoroughly contemporary and eye-catching creations. The founder of By Walid (launched in London, 2011), Al-Damirji's signature style references the past in inspiring the future.
He's also an inveterate collector. When you encounter his works, or if you are fortunate enough to visit his studios, you are immediately confronted with the very distinct Al-Damirji sense of style and aesthetic awareness. Whether its the vintage fabrics he uses in his works or the kaleidoscope of antiques, furniture, precious trinkets or esoteric design that he surrounds himself with, Al-Damirji's flair for drawing on disparate elements and styles in his life and work, makes for a unique and exciting artistic vision.
It's not immediately apparent in his fashion designs - things are rarely that simple - but his family heritage has definitely had something to do with shaping Al-Damirji's creative vision. Born to a family of Iraqi emigres, who left their homeland in 1957, and brought up in Lebanon and the UK, Al-Damirji's late father Abdel-Hamid Al-Damirji was passionate about his homeland, always hoping to return one day, sadly never managing to do so. Instead, he was a successful businessman, running family concerns and bequeathing his son not only with a deep and cherished appreciation of Iraq, but an unshakeable love for Iraqi art and artists of the mid 20th century.
It's a selection of these artists who form a sequence of works in the Modern & Contemporary Middle East sale - artists who, each in their own way, articulated something of the turbulent societal and cultural shifts in mid-century Iraq, as the nation retreated from colonialism, debated over secularism and religion, and absorbed the evolutions in Western art, reflecting Iraq's remarkably dynamic, multicultural energy.
During the 1950s, a core group of artists had returned from their studies abroad to take up teaching positions at Baghdad’s emerging art institutions. Three influential art groups were founded and began exhibiting, several artists who would generate foundational legacies in Iraq graduated from Baghdad’s Institute of Fine Arts, and, most importantly, the artistic ideologies that would define Iraq’s contributions to modernism of the twentieth century were being codified in manifestos, exhibitions, and grand artistic experiments. The artworks in the Al-Damirji collection emerged either directly or indirectly from this formative context. Here, Walid Al-Damirji talks about his late father's passion for art, his legacy - and looks through a few of the lots included in the Modern & Contemporary Middle East sale.
"Iraq’s such a melting pot of cultures. It was a very multicultural society in mid 20th century Iraq, in Syria, Egypt, you had all the religions there. And it has always been for me, the cradle of civilization. My late father was the one who opened my eyes to Iraqi culture and history. I was a product of exile – he left Iraq in 1957, and his wish was always to go back and live there. He loved his country and he loved everything about it. And I think that's where these Iraqi artists come in, because they too, all had a love for Iraq,
"I grew up amongst all these wonderful pieces and I was lucky enough to meet a lot of these artists over the years"
My father was a great intellect, and this is what got me started with buying Iraqi art. I grew up amongst all these wonderful pieces and I was lucky enough to meet a lot of these artists over the years. My father religiously collected many of these well-known Iraqi artists. I had my own taste and my own thing you know but it was funny how we would always agree. My father was an intellectual and his knowledge of Iraq, and that area, was just phenomenal. He was led by knowledge of history; I am led purely by what I see and what I love, anything that spoke to me. It is a different way of collecting.
My father also befriended many of these artists - they were his friends, some for many years, so he knew how they thought and where their influences came from. But apart from that, everybody in our family had their own eye and bought in their own way. For instance, I won't have Persian carpets in my house, yet my father had a huge collection. So, the whole family was very, very cultured, with everyone pursuing their own tastes."
Ismail Fattah was a sculptor first and foremost and I saw this piece hanging in [artist] Rafa al Nasiri’s studio, at an opening. I asked about several pieces, and he told me they’re not for sale but asked if I wanted to meet him. So, this is what I liked about these artists - they supported each other! It’s not so common in other places, but these artists were happy to introduce you to each other. So, I was invited to Fattah's studio the next day and what I found that was really very wonderful was that he had a sort of mini school, where he had all these interns working. I made my choices of his pieces – he gave me carte blanche which was very rare for him – and we chatted for a long time. And then he introduced me to a couple of his students. I bought some of their works.
Fattah was interested in my interests – we talked a lot about Henry Moore, for example. He also knew of my family and said, you people have to come back [to Iraq], you know, set an example. Which unfortunately didn’t happen. In this sale, we have what I call the classics. I would rotate these Fattah heads at the end of a corridor - I loved walking down the corridor so it looks different, as you approach it, it changes. I thought he was so fantastic.
Every member of my extended family on the maternal and paternal side, owns Mohammad Ghani pieces. As a child, I remember every home we went into, we'd see these women, you know, the odalisques, or the women wearing abayas - I found them fascinating. I mean, my father had a huge collection and I loved mixing them and playing with them. Also, what I found fascinating is the folkloric touch – Baghdadi Wedding Procession is a beautiful, traditional piece. The mother and father of the bride, the dancers – he caught the spirit of this traditional wedding procession. It’s something that transcends age. They’re bronze - substantial and weighty.
Faik was also very close to my family. We used to see him every summer in the south of France, where he lived with his wife. I wasn’t a big fan of his classic horses, which are very famous. My father gifted me one once, which I actually sold to finance something else. But his portraits are very intense, you cannot move or ignore them. This one we put in this sale just captures what I thought of that disappeared Iraq – all the marshes, the charming homes along the Tigris. I loved looking at this. He was a terribly nice man. He painted all our portraits multiple times. I think he had a complete turnaround in his career and reverted to a Classicist view later in life.
This is stunning. This one is really something. We didn’t want to let this one go, and one thing I found interesting is that my father used to say that Shakir Hassan was very religious, an extremely pious man. There is such a strength and vibrancy to his work, and this is probably my favourite in this collection. You can see his influence filtering through in a lot of younger artists now.
