Dia al-Azzawi is an internationally recognised Iraqi painter and sculptor who has been living and working in London since the late 1970s. He is a pioneer of Modern Iraqi art.
Al-Azzawi started his artistic career in 1964 having studied in the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad under the leadership and guidance of Hafidh Al-Drouby following a degree in archaeology which has continued to have a profound impact on his art.
In 1969 Al-Azzawi formed the New Vision Group (al-Ru'yya al-Jadidah), which united artists through their ideology and cultural thinking as opposed to the stylistic link that was characteristic of the Baghdad Modern Art Group established by Jewad Selim and Shaker Hassan Al Said many years before. Broadening their inspiration to encompass Arab culture in its entirety, Al-Azzawi's works began to tackle themes of pain, death and conflict, linking the visual culture of the past with the present.
Upon his immigration to London in the 1970s and his reintroduction to collections of Islamic manuscripts and poetry that were found in museum collections there, Al-Azzawi continued to explore the connection of the written word, the visualisation of the Arabic language and painting. In the same way that words are the material, so to speak, of writing, Al-Azzawi felt that paint as a material and painting was equally a form of poetic expression.
The art historian, Nada Shabout, has classified Dia Azzawi's work as belonging to the School of Calligraphic Art (also known as the Hurufiyya movement) using a style termed calligraphic combinations,which means that he combines abstract, freeform and classical styles.
He is noted for incorporating Arabic script into his paintings. Active in the arts community, he founded the Iraqi art group known as New Vision and has been an inspiration to a generation of young, calligraffiti artists.
His works are held in prestigious art galleries, art museums and public collections including in both the West and the Middle East: Vienna Public Collection; British Museum, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Gulbenkian Collection, Barcelona; The World Bank, Washington D.C.; Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, Paris; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Pier Gardin Collection, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, Baghdad; Museum of Modern Art, Damascus; Museum of Modern Art, Tunis; Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Adel Mandil Collection, Riyadh; The Saudi Bank, London; Jeddah International Airport, Saudi Arabia; Riyadh International Airport, Saudi Arabia; The United Bank of Kuwait, London; Development Fund, Kuwait, Una Foundation, Morocco; Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman; and the British Airways Collection, London.
In 2021, Tamayouz Excellence Award launched a prize named the Dia al-Azzawi Prize for Public Art, the recipient of the inaugural prize was the graffiti of Al-Tahrir tunnel in Baghdad by the Tishreen uprising Artists.
Azzawi now spends his time living and working in both London and Dubai.
