Jamil Hamoudi

Abstract

Jamil Hamoudi, born in Baghdad in 1924, is a prominent figure in Iraq's art and criticism world. He was a multi-talented artist, excelling as a painter, sculptor, poet, writer, and art critic. After training at the Ma'had Al Funun Al Jamila (Institute of Fine Arts) in Baghdad, he started work as a sculptor and shifted to Impressionist, Cubist, and Surrealist painting. His career reflects his consistent quest to equilibrate tradition and modernity by incorporating oriental and occidental influences, including Arabic calligraphy. His influence extends beyond Iraq, mainly through his contributions to Arab abstract art and the Hurufiyya movement. In Paris, between 1947 and 1958, Hamoudi drew attention at the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles. He also headed influential magazines such as Al Fikr Al Hadith and Ishtar and played an essential role as a cultural transmitter. His legacy of aesthetic innovation continues to inspire contemporary art.

Biography

Jamil Hamoudi was born in 1924 in Baghdad. He was one of the most prominent figures in art and criticism in Iraq. Early, he dedicated himself to promoting Iraqi culture and became known as a multi-talented artist, excelling in painting, sculpture, poetry, writing, and art criticism. Hamoudi was introduced to Baghdad's rich cultural heritage in early childhood by his father, who accompanied him to the Iraqi National Museum and Baghdad's cafes. Hamoudi immersed himself in the atmosphere of art and ancient sculptures at the museum.

At four years old, Hamoudi entered the Qur'anic school, where he learned reading and writing. He then continued his education at Al J'afaryya Elementary School (1933–1939) and Al Markazia Secondary School (1939–1942). With great passion for learning, he also frequented evening classes at Al J'afaryya School (1943–1944). During this time, he began to shape his library, which included books on Iraqi history and culture and international art magazines. Hamoudi discovered modern Western art in books and became familiar with the works of artists like Renoir, Cézanne, and Van Gogh, setting the stage for the development of his artistic perspective.

In 1943, Hamoudi enrolled in the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad, where he specialised in sculpture under the direction of the artist Jawad Selim (1919–1961) and graduated in 1945. He worked as a researcher at the Iraqi National Museum where he was interested in exploring the ancient writings of Mesopotamian civilisations. This job enabled him to establish relationships with the prominent figures of the Iraqi art scene, such as Hafidh Al Droubi (1914–1991), Khalid Al Rahhal (1926–1987), Issa Hanna (1919–2006), and Atta Sabri (1913–1987), and his close relationship with the brothers Jawad and Nizar Salim (1925–1983) helped hone his artistic style.

At the same time, with his art practice, Hamoudi became involved in journalism and art criticism and began writing articles for Al Zahra magazine in 1942 under the pseudonym "Al Mandoub." (The Delegate). In 1943, he joined Jame'iat Al Rabita (Al Rabita Association) as an art critic. Wanting to broaden his intellectual horizons, he learnt English, which gave him access to Western art and literature. He was passionate about art books and magazines, leading him to explore modern European art movements extensively. Between 1942 and 1944, in cooperation with the writer Sadiq Al Halawi, Hamoudi issued the art magazine Ashtarowt, which was handwritten and circulated among artists. This ambitious magazine was a space for intellectual and artistic experimentation, aimed to merge literature, poetry, Islamic, and contemporary art with inspiration from Western artistic movements, becoming a laboratory for renewed aesthetic ideas in Iraq.

In 1954, he founded the magazine Al Fikr Al Hadith (Modern Thought), which formed a forum for cultural and artistic dialogue in Iraq. He also launched Studio, a newsletter specialising in cinema, with which he sought to highlight cinema’s development. In parallel, he started teaching art history, art education, and calligraphy at the Dar Al Mu'alemeen (Teachers' College) in Baghdad. In 1946, he organised the first international exhibition titled Ma'rad Al Fikr Al Hadith (Modern Thought Exhibition) at the Ethnographic Museum in Baghdad with the participation of artists from Iraq, Poland, and the U.K. In the same year, he assumed the position of secretary of Jam’iyat Asdiqaa Al Fann (the Friends of Art Association), reinforcing his role as one of the prominent supporters of the Iraqi art scene.

In 1947, Hamoudi received a scholarship to study in Paris. He studied painting at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian. He also studied art history at the École du Louvre. He mastered French at the Alliance Française, which helped him integrate in Paris's cultural environment. There, he specialised in Oriental archaeology, enrolled in the doctoral program at the Sorbonne University in Paris under the leadership of the French archaeologist André Barraud, and pursued academic research at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, focusing on Assyrian and Babylonian language studies. In Paris, he established relationships with prominent figures in the artistic community, such as the writer Pierre Fleury and the artist Francis Picabia.

Hamoudi participated in several group exhibitions, notably at the Exposition du Salon des Réalités Nouvelles from 1949 to 1953. In addition to solo exhibitions —his first being held in 1950 at Galerie Voyelles in Paris, accompanied by a bilingual Arabic and French catalogue —he was also actively involved in organising exhibitions for other artists. At the Institut Endoplastique in Paris, he presented works by artists like Serge Poliakoff, Henri Goetz, Pierre Soulages, and Hans Hartung. Two years later, in 1952, he exhibited his own work at the Galerie Colette Allendy. His works from this period reflect intensive research for a style that combines French and Iraqi influences.

Hamoudi published critical articles in newspapers and magazines such as Le Monde and Actualité Artistique Internationale, as well as in Lebanese magazines such as Al Adib and Al Adab. After founding Ashtar magazine in 1959, which formed a cultural bridge between the Orient and Occident, Hamoudi returned to Baghdad in 1962. In Baghdad, he was appointed to manage art programmes at the Ministry of Guidance (Wazarat Al Irshad) and became a member of the Antiquities Committee of the ministry in 1968. He contributed to a documentary film about Baghdad and served as secretary of the Iraqi Artists Society’s. He exhibited his works at Al Wasiti Hall and served as a conservator of the Iraqi Museum between 1966 and 1973.

In 1973, he was appointed Artistic Director of the Department of Fine Arts at the Ministry of Culture and Information, where he worked in close collaboration with the artist Nizar Salim (1925–1982) until 1984. During those years, Hamoudi travelled between Europe and the Arab world, lecturing on the history of art in Mesopotamia. In 1976, he chaired the Regional Symposium on Aesthetic Education organised by UNESCO in Baghdad. In 1984, Hamoudi returned to Paris as a cultural consultant for the Iraqi embassy. In 1986, he held an exhibition at the National Museum of African and Oceanian Arts in Paris, where he received the Order of Arts and Letters from France. He founded Inana Gallery, a centre for art and culture, gathering prominent Iraqi artists and intellectuals, such as Nouri Al-Rawi (1925–2014) and Mohammed Ghani Hikmat (1929–2011). Jamil Hamoudi passed away in 2003, leaving an immortal artistic and cultural legacy that continues to inspire new generations of artists in Iraq and abroad.

Artworks

Hamoudi's career reflects his consistent quest to balance tradition and modernity. Early on, Hamoudi was distinguished as a sculptor of wooden busts. His works reveal the brilliance in contrasting solid masses and thin lines, giving them remarkable vitality. He immersed himself in an academic style, but his discovery of the works of Aristide Maillol and Ossip Zadkine led him to move beyond the traditional boundaries of academicism, as in his sculpture Al Yonboua (The Fountain) in 1942. That same year, he developed an interest in Impressionism through his interactions with Polish painters in Baghdad. The influence of these exchanges is evident in his paintings, where he experiments with materials and surface textures that evoke the vibrant effects of light, the subtle chromatic tones, and the fragmented brushstrokes characteristic of this style​​.

In his early paintings, Hamoudi incorporated vivid colors inspired by Kurdish clothing and Arab textiles, infusing his compositions with vibrant energy. At the same time, he explored Cubist lines, adding a geometric dimension to enhance the expressive power of his works.

His exploration of Surrealism, through the publication What is Surrealism? by André Breton, offered to him by Jawad Selim, was a decisive turning point in his practice.  The book helped him explore mysterious and magical forms, an influence noted in Al Fikr Al Hadith magazine, one of the first Iraqi publications to promote Surrealism in the country. In the late 1940s, Hamoudi incorporated surrealist elements into his work, using words and letters as symbols to create a dialogue between language and image. His works were also inspired by the traditions of Mesopotamian civilisations and Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti, the 13th-century Iraqi painter and calligrapher, whose aesthetics and themes fuelled Hamoudi's experiments at the crossroads of surrealism. While works such as The Kiss (1943) and Head of a Woman (1944) reflect his exploration of this dreamlike realm, he simultaneously continued to produce figurative and post-impressionist paintings.

In Paris, he became involved in the Surrealist circle and met figures such as Jacques Hérold (1910– 1987) and Henri Michaux (1899– 1994). These meetings allowed him to discuss the aesthetics of Arabic calligraphy. He distanced himself from the group in 1947, finding Surrealist works too dark and hopeless, and started to focus on creating his own style. He preferred symbolism to surrealism, which allowed him to explore more comprehensive themes. Al Qater wa Al thikrah (The Dew and the Memory, 1946) displays his mastery of combining forms and symbols, using Arabic letters to create messages with moral and poetic meaning.

Jamil Hamoudi played a revolutionary role in Arab abstract art by incorporating Arabic letters into his paintings and was one of the early practitioners of the Hurufiyya movement. He used Arabic letters to enrich visually his works to preserve their signification, emphasising a unique approach that combines spiritual dimension and artistic innovation.

The European experience was pivotal, as it placed him at the crossroads of European culture and Eastern civilisation. For Hamoudi, abstraction became a means to explore the intersection between modernity and tradition. He reinvented ancient forms, notably by incorporating Arabic letters into his compositions, granting them aesthetic and symbolic validity within modern works.

By liberating the Arabic letter from its purely textual function, he transcended the confines of classical calligraphy. It was in this context that the Ḥurufiyya movement emerged, blending abstraction with Arab traditions through the medium of writing. This movement, which began in the 1940s, was formally established in 1971 with the founding of the One Dimension Group (al-bu’d al-waḥīd) in Baghdad. Unlike classical calligraphy, Ḥurufiyya liberated the Arabic letter from its textual role to reinvent it as an abstract visual form rooted in tradition yet open to the aesthetic innovations of the modern world.

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