Iraqi Artist Receives Great Arab Minds Award
By Annabel Preston
Portrait of DIA AL-AZZAWI. Courtesy the Great Arab Minds Award, Dubai.
The Iraqi multidisciplinary artist Dia Al-Azzawi was announced as a recipient of the 2024 Great Arab Minds Award in the Literature and Arts category on December 19, 2024. The award will be formally presented to Al-Azzawi during a grand ceremony at Dubai’s Museum of the Future on January 16.
Great Arab Minds was launched in 2022 by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai. Each year, the AED 1 million (USD 275,000) prize is awarded across six categories to Arabs who have made significant contributions of knowledge and pioneering thinking to their respective fields—Natural Sciences (Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry); Economics; Medicine; Literature and Arts; Engineering and Technology; and Architecture and Design. The Great Arab Minds Award offers recipients an opportunity to gain further recognition and support for their work, funding their ongoing research and projects.
Born in 1939 in Baghdad, Al-Azzawi was a prominent member of many mid-century Iraqi modern art movements, including the Baghdad Modern Art Group and the New Vision Group, whose manifesto he authored in 1969. From painting and printmaking to sculpture and design, Al-Azzawi’s innovative practice bridges traditional Arabic cultural and heritage elements with investigations of contemporary issues. In particular, his paintings and sculptures draw attention to the beauty of Arabic calligraphy and poetry while telling stories of Arab identity and experience in the past and present. His work has been exhibited and collected by public institutions worldwide.
Annabel Preston is assistant editor at ArtAsiaPacific.
