Born in 1947 in Al Sawira, Iraq, Nazar Al Hindawi earned a Master’s degree in Drawing from the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad. He then held the position of professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Baghdad. Being a member of the International Association of Fine Arts A.I.P, the Union of Arab Artists, and the president of the Iraqi Plastic Artists Society, Al Hindawi participated in all conferences of the Arab Artists Union, and many seminars of the International Association of Fine Arts. He won the first prize in creating the logo of the Seventh Conference of the Non-Aligned Countries.

Al Hindawi is known for his gigantic mural, the Mural of Nationalization, 1977, executed as a mosaic at the Vatican Studio in Rome, and placed on the Baghdad International Airport road. Through this mural, he found a way to build a harmonious composition fusing a crowd of people representing the various ethnicities of Iraq’s population. The artist structured the space of his mural in terms of color distribution, overlapping blocks, and cubic geometrical assemblies in a meticulous effort to populate his work and give it balance at the same time. He aimed to deliver a visual that portrays nationalism and social belonging. Unfortunately, the mural was removed after 2003 and replaced by drawings of the ruling al-Sadr religious family.

Al Hindawi’s style developed from abstract combined with realism beginnings towards a tendency to social realism where he succeeded to revisit the ancient Iraqi pictorial vocabulary and reused it in portraying Iraqi urban, nomad, and rural spaces. His color hues were the warm colors of his land: he used an oriental color palette infused with light. His works encompassed oil paintings, watercolors, ink and pencil drawings, graphic art, and sculptures.

Nazar Al Hindawi passed away in Iraq in 2000.

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