Akram Shukri (1910-1983) | Ibrahimi Collection

edit

Title:

Untitled

Medium:

Watercolors on Carton

Date of creation:

1943

Artwork Commentary:

With the advent of the 4th decade of the 20th century, sure signs appeared among Iraqi artists to achieve an Iraqi identity and a tendency to adopt modern techniques in performance. In a lecture by the artist Akram Shukri, after he was chosen as head of the first art organization named ‘Friends of Art Association’ in 1941, he stated, “In Iraq today, there is a very active artistic movement, but I don’t believe that there is yet an Iraqi School of special characteristics.” He says, “A fully developed artistic identity is achieved only when the identity of its society is developed, through which art can grow.” In the first exhibition held by the Association in 1943, 272 artworks, including paintings and sculptures, were exhibited.

Artist Name :

Akram Shukri

edit

Title:

Landscape

Medium:

Oil on Board

Date of creation:

1955

Artist Name :

Akram Shukri

edit

Title:

After the Bath

Medium:

Pyroxylin on Board

Date of creation:

Ca. 1956

Artwork Commentary:

There is no doubt that the technique used by the artist in many of his Impressionist works had become a well-known technique, as Jackson Pollock was the first to use it. Like this painting, a nude female lies relaxed in contrasting colors. “The works presented by Akram Shukri were few and mostly academic in style if we exclude what he presented at the 1956 Iraqi Art Festival after returning from a UNESCO fellowship to Mexico, where he presented paintings with bright lines of pyroxylin paint”. - Dr. Khalid Al-Qassab ▪Exhibited in "Partisans of the Nude: An Arab Art Genre in an Era of Contest, 1920 - 1960" at Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York, 05.Oct.2023 till 14.Jan.2024.

Artist Name :

Akram Shukri

edit

Title:

Still Life (Fruit Basket)

Medium:

Oil on Board

Date of creation:

1957

Artist Name :

Akram Shukri

edit

Title:

A Mosque in Baghdad

Medium:

Mixed Media on Board

Date of creation:

Ca. 1960s

Artwork Commentary:

Akram Shukri embraced the artistic modernity project and was influenced by one of the pioneers of Abstract Expressionism in the United States but with his vision and style. Akram Shukri's influence was formal and not expressive; he needed to have the suffering, pressure, and heat imposed by competition, stampede, and a strong desire to prove the distinction that Westerners had. For the artist, life in Baghdad was calm, and the competition and the charge were also quiet, so the outputs and the elements of the display of color, lines, and flows expressed this environment and this atmosphere. We notice this in most pioneer artists’ works in the 1950s.

Artist Name :

Akram Shukri

Previous Pause Next

Search form