 Ismail
Fattah
Carefree
creativity that challenged and changed
Ismail Fattah was a unique
phenomenon in the history of Iraqi art. Along with compatriots Jawad
Salim and Khaled Rahhal, he sculpted and painted with an equal degree
of passion and creativity, despite the huge differences between
the two art forms. Prior to his death in 2004, Fattah told me that
he painted to relieve the spiritual tension he felt when he was
unable to execute his ideas in sculpture and, during that same conversation,
went on to say that painting often caused him anguish and pain.
While Fattah had been
known, since the 1960s, to possess a bias towards sculpture, even
in his ink drawings and in many of his paintings, it is not surprising
that during the last six years of his life he produced dozens of
etchings in which he employed a painter's judgment and maintained
a clear connection to the content and form of his oil paintings.
In Iraq, Fattah will
be remembered most for the statues and monuments he designed and
built that still adorn public squares in Baghdad. The most important
of these is undoubtedly the 'Martyr's Monument', a moving tribute
to those Iraqis, and others in the Arab world, who lost their lives
to violent conflict. Although not built until the mid-1980s, the
monument was designed by Fattah several years earlier as an entry
in a competition that he went on to win. In fact, Fattah had worked
with an architect to complete the blueprints for the construction
of the sculpture prior to 1980, after which the project was shelved
before being picked up by the government later.
I first met Ismail Fattah
in 1959, when we were both students at the Institute of Fine Arts
in Baghdad. I was in my first year at the Institute and he was close
to completing his studies there. It was clear to me then that Fattah
was an exceptional student who stood out from the rest and enjoyed
the admiration and attention of his teachers. In many ways he appeared
to be more of an assistant to those who taught him than a mere student.
I also sensed – and admired – in him, even in those early days,
an eagerness to go beyond the confines of what he was being taught
and to explore new realms in his art.
Any attempt to assess
Fattah's artistic achievements is, I believe, likely to be problematic
because the artist himself had no interest in anything that did
not involve sculpture and painting and showed little patience for
an intellectual community that had failed to see the importance
of documenting artistic experiences. Moreover, the unprecedented
difficulties faced by Fattah, and other Iraqis during the many years
of conflict and international sanctions, necessarily make any serious
evaluation of the artist's oeuvre incomplete.
I have been
able, however, to put together some thoughts on the artist from
a recorded interview that I conducted with him in his studio in
Doha in 2002, as well as through the many conversations I had with
him over the years, particularly in the mid-1990s when I used to
meet with Fattah in the studio in Doha that the Arab Museum of Modern
Art provided for him. It was there that he produced a collection
of works that many believe best represents his achievements in both
sculpture and painting.
Ismail Fattah was born in Basra in 1934 and moved with his family
as a child to Nassiriyeh where he attended school. During one of
our conversations, Fattah recounted how angry his school teachers
used to be with him when his interest in creating with his hands
drove him to sculpt shapes out of the classroom chalk – which was
very scarce at the time because of the privation of the Second World
War. He also recalled visiting the port in Basra with an uncle who
worked there and being fascinated when he saw an allied aircraft
carrier that was docked in the harbour. ''When I returned home'',
said Fattah, ''I made a model of the carrier with cardboard and
my uncle was so surprised and pleased with it that he offered it
to the governor of Basra of the time.''
After completing his
secondary school education in Nassiriyeh, Fattah decided, in 1952,
to go to Baghdad to study at the newly-constructed Institute of
Fine Arts where he gained two diplomas, one in painting in 1956
and the second in sculpture in 1958. During his years at the Institute,
Fattah attracted the attention of Jawad Salim, a teacher and sculptor
who was widely recognized as the father of the modern art movement
in Iraq. Ironically Fattah was unaware of the importance of Salim
and did not realize that many of those who taught him were considered
the most important Iraqi artists of that time. He said he remembered
once expressing to Salim an interest in 'socialist art', to which
Salim replied: ''If that is the kind of art that you admire, I will
not be able to help you.'' Fattah did not understand Salim's remark
and told me he had felt disappointed at his teacher's reaction.
During Fattah's second
year at the Institute, the students were asked to create sculptures.
Fattah chose to sculpt a peasant standing with his shovel at his
side.
“I started to construct
the metal framework for the sculpture and had also begun to cover
it in clay'', he recalled."When Jawad Salim saw it he told
me to immediately cast it in plaster. I was surprised at his request,
especially since I was still in the early stages of working on the
sculpture. After the framework was cast, Jawad painted it in a bronze
color and it was put on exhibit in 1957.”
I believe it was Fattah's
relationship with Salim that paved the way for the young artist
and convinced him to look beyond the obvious and to explore his
ability to create a style that would be different from that of his
contemporaries.
Although he distinguished
himself as a student, Fattah did not attract the attention of wider
artistic circles. He was obsessed with working with his teacher
and at the same time was busy studying the work of renowned artists,
such as Faeq Hassan and others. He was also attentive to the work
of other students, who were doing advanced studies at the Institute
including Shaker Hassan, who used popular heritage in a style influenced
by cubism, Kazem Haidar who attracted attention with several daring
pieces, such as his famous painting of Hussein's martyrdom, and
Tareq Mazloum, who combined popular and primitive art with features
from Assyrian sculpture.
Having completed his
studies at the Institute, Fattah went to Rome where he gained a
higher diploma in sculpture from the Academy of Fine Arts and a
diploma in ceramics from the San Jacmo Academy. He also won first
prize in sculpture for Arab artists in Italy in 1962 and another
first prize for sculpture for foreign artists in Italy one year
later.
While at the Rome Academy,
Fattah found that his course work was not very helpful, especially
since his main professor was very fond of classical art and tried
to impose it on his students. As time passed, the young artist discovered
what he was looking for while working outside the Academy on smaller
sculptures that reflected the influence of artists whose work he
had been introduced to since his arrival.
Although the work of
Henry Moore had served to influence a whole generation of artists,
Fattah was not impressed by it. Rather, he believed he had found
what he was looking for in the work of another British sculptor,
Kenneth Armitage, who employed a simplicity in shaping his sculptures
and created forms that were more human-like in their interaction
with their environment.
Upon his return to Baghdad
in 1965 Fattah joined the Institute of Fine Arts as a teacher of
ceramics. It was not long, however, before disagreements with other
faculties in his department began because Fattah encouraged his
students to disregard the utilitarian and traditional aspects of
ceramic design and to create works of art instead. He did not believe
that his students should confine themselves to a particular technique,
since he thought discipline only served to restrict the beauty of
the imagination. It was this attitude that made Fattah extremely
popular with the Institute's students, who treated him more like
a friend and mentor than a teacher. In 1969, he also began teaching
sculpture at the Institute and continued to do so until the mid-1990s.
Fattah contributed to
the change that took place on the Baghdad art scene upon his return
from Italy. He held a solo exhibition at the National Museum of
Modern Art of sculptures and oil paintings that he had brought with
him from Rome that proved to be very different from the work that
other Iraqi artists were doing at the time. The exhibition was revolutionary
in its style and many who saw the work were unable to understand
it. Fattah's small sculptures revealed great patience and attention
to detail and his paintings reflected a complete departure from
the usual subjects that had, until then, occupied Iraqi artists.
Rather than depict the usual images of peasants and of daily life,
Fattah's sculptures conveyed a concern for the experience of humankind
in its wider global context, as well as for the human body and its
relationship with the surrounding void. We discussed the manner
in which this seminal exhibition was received during our recorded
interview. "The general climate on the Baghdad art scene was
marked by confusion'', Fattah explained. “There was also a kind
of freedom that was devoid of political commitment and which distanced
us from the positions taken by the founders of the modern art movement
in Iraq."
On the more
personal level, I was struck, throughout the years of our friendship,
by the extent of Fattah's lightheartedness when it came to showing
responsibility towards his family. As late as the year 2000, Fattah
described himself in a newspaper interview as "a child who
plays with clay and with colors". I remember visiting him late
in the afternoon on several occasions only to discover that his
children – two boys and two girls – had not yet had their lunch
because he had been too busy working and his then German wife, who
spoke no Arabic at that time, was unable to brave the streets of
Baghdad to fetch the groceries, so we would have to go out and buy
the children some take away food to eat. It seemed to me at the
time that he was too preoccupied with his work and with his life
outside the home to pay much attention to those people who needed
him most.
After the death of his first wife in 1992, Fattah married again
and upon his death left behind two young children.
Fattah's frivolity also
affected his work in that he did not use all the time he had available
to him to execute his ideas, choosing instead to draw them on any
bit of paper he could find and only work on them if he was in the
mood to do so. He said he preferred seizing the moment during which
he felt like working, regardless of what the external circumstances
were and without sticking to a particular work schedule.
During the latter stages
of his terminal illness, while he was working and receiving treatment
in Abu Dhabi, Fattah expressed a wish to be buried wherever he happened
to die. Although the prospect of his dying was a subject that both
of us found difficult to discuss, I spoke to him from London and
told him I thought he should return to Baghdad. He said that although
going home was something he longed to do, he did not think he would
be able to make the journey and in any case could not afford to
pay for it. With the help of a friend who had close contacts with
the government of Abu Dhabi, his family was able to charter a plane
to fly him to Iraq on July 22, 2004. Fattah died a few hours after
his arrival in Baghdad.
Dia
Al-Azzawi (Book on Ismail Fattah which will be published in English
and French by Touchart, London, and in Arabic by Dar Kutob, Beirut.)
Title: Edition 2/7
Media:
Bronze
Size: 146 x 36 x 30 cm, 1997
Weight: weight 75 Kg
►►
Some
of the artist's Artwork
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