KHALID AL-JADIR (IRAQI 1924-1998)
Untitled
signed in Arabic Khalid Al-Jadir (lower right)
oil on board, framed
32.5 x 45 cm (12 3/4 x 17 3/4 in)

PROVENANCE
Private collection, London

A painter, scholar, and great advocate for the arts in Iraq, Khalid Al-Jadir first studied art and law in Baghdad before leaving Iraq for Paris in 1949. He spent five years in France studying, painting, and participating in exhibitions.

He enrolled at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris and earned a doctorate in the History of Islamic Art from the Université de Lille. Upon returning to Baghdad, Al-Jadir continued to paint landscapes, cityscapes, scenes of contemporary life, and portraits of women and children, and he established himself as a leader in Iraqi academic and artistic communities.

In 1980, he moved to Rabat, Morocco, where he continued to paint and to work as a university professor of art and history.

The scene depicted here by Al-Jadir captures the pastoral aesthetic of an Iraqi Village. The painterly approach the artist uses in forming the silhouettes of the landscape creates a sense of movement to an otherwise static scene of architectural elements. The color palette ranges from the expected tones one would find in a landscape, that of beige, greys and dark blue yet are punctuated with jolts of ochre purple and teal. The overall effect evokes the artist's Iraqi homeland.