The theme of the traditional Iraqi town is constantly revisited in the paintings of seminal Iraqi artist Nouri Al Rawi. Born in Rawa in 1925, the artist witnessed Baghdad’s emergence as a vibrant art centre in the 1950s. Merging representation and abstraction, Al Rawi’s poetic depictions of Iraq’s natural and urban landscapes draw on personal experience and memory. Often referencing the whitewashed architecture of his hometown, Al Rawi instils a dreamlike quality in his paintings through distilled colours and textures, often integrating poetry to provide an element of cultural location and metaphor. His work relates to a larger critical debate in the Arab World about post-independence identity and cultural authenticity. Al Rawi played a role in the development of modern Iraqi art, founding the national Museum of Modern Art and spearheading several government sponsored art initiatives in the 1980s. A 1959 graduate of Baghdad’s Institute of Fine Arts, the artist was the first to establish literature and arts pages in the Iraqi press. Al Rawi, in addition to his many solo exhibitions at home and abroad, has authored several books including Reflections on Modern Iraqi Art published in 1962.