Lot 55: MAHMOUD SABRI, (IRAQI, 1927-2012) The Hero oil on canvas 77 3/4 x 54 7/8 i

MAHMOUD SABRI, (IRAQI, 1927-2012) The Hero oil on canvas 77 3/4 x 54 7/8 in. (197.5 x 139.5cm.) Painted in 1963

EXHIBITED: London, La Galleria Pall Mall, Mahmoud Sabri 1927-2012, 2013 (illustrated in colour, p. 19). Not afraid to express his opinion about current afairs and socialistic theories through writing and painting, Mahmoud Sabri helped to establish an assorted awareness in Iraq and the Middle East pushing a development in artistic expression and as a result is long recognised as a thinker and one of the most important fgures in laying the foundations of Modern Iraqi art. Born in 1927 in Baghdad, Sabri left to the United Kingdom to complete his studies in social sciences. There he met Zaid Saleh in Loughborough where the two discussed their personal ideologies as well as art and history. Inspired to start painting himself, Sabri returned to Baghdad in 1949 and took up a position in a bank where he later became head. He meanwhile had met with the group of artists that was to eventually form the Societé Primitive. Unlike the Jama’t Al Fan Al Hadith, including Jewad Selim and Shaker Hassan Al Said who believed in the adoption of Iraqi heritage only, Sabri was committed to the ideology that everyone’s cultural heritage should be incorporated and adopted as his own. Due to the changing political climate of 1950s Iraq which developed a deep rift between the higher and lower classes, involvement in the life of the hardships of the poor and dispossessed became a distinguishing mark of a majority of Iraqi art in the early and mid-1950s. Unlike his artistic counterparts who were more concerned with producing works that were more Aesthetic in style particularly focusing on pastoral compositions, Sabri was indiferent to the ‘nicer’ notions of style and traditions that were important to others. As a result, he was preoccupied with using his works to highlight social and political issues and the plight of the people. Sabri’s agony, so to speak, was partly political, partly existential and so the treatment of his social themes was full of pain, protest and anger. His early works were characterised by social consciousness and humanitarianism. In his paintings he thus depicted revolutionaries, poverty, foods and demonstrations; his individuals became characterised by a leanness and toughness that cemented Sabri’s stance on social issues labelling him often as a socialist or even communist supporter. It was during this period that Sabri produced a series of works which would take him over 12 years to complete entitled Janazet Al Shahid (Funeral of a Martyr), an example of which was ofered at Christie’s Dubai in March 2015 and achieved

PROVENANCE: The artist’s Estate.