The Great War and its aftermath in Iraq: Contemporary visual and textual perspectives Professor Marcus Milwright, British Academy Global Professor, University of York

Event details

History of Art Research Seminar

This talk considers a range of primary sources created during the Mesopotamian Campaign (1914–18) and through to the early years of the Kingdom of Iraq under British Administration (1921–32). Two groups of evidence are considered in detail. 

The first comprises annotations, poems, photographs, and objects associated with Captain H. V. S. Paige, a Canadian who served in Iraq through to 1923. This varied collection provides insights into the attitudes of Allied troops to the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of the region. 

The second is a set of decorated brass objects that depict events in the southern Iraqi town of Hindiyya (Tuwayrij) during the Iraq Revolt in 1920. 

These complex compositions have no obvious parallel in the metalworking traditions of the Islamic Middle East and represent an attempt to employ traditional craft practices to represent aspects of mechanised warfare and the imposition of British colonial power.

These two case studies provide the basis for concluding observations about the impact of Modernity on the production of material and visual culture in the Middle East during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

[image credit: Detail of a decorated brass platter, southern Iraq, c. 1920. Private collection. Photo: Mohammed Khaleeq]