“If the significance of the conventional art salon lies in the emergence of an institutional system responsible for evaluating production, nurturing debates and criticism, and disseminating art among a wider public, an alternative informal culture existed in pre-1956 Baghdad, which accomplished some of these as well as other goals, laying the foundations for further institutionalisation.”

Publication: Amin Alsaden. “Alternative Salons: Cultivating Art and Architecture in the Domestic Spaces of Post-World War II Baghdad,” in The Art Salon in the Arab Region: Politics of Taste Making, 165-206, edited by Nadia von Maltzahn and Monique Bellan. Beirut: Orient-Institut Beirut, 2018.

Keywords: scholarship, peer-reviewed, research, art, architecture, history, historical, historiography, narrative, story, culture, salons, institutions, culture, domestic, interiors, houses, gatherings, Majalis, diwans, artistic, groups, associations, community, parties, exhibitions, debates, eduation, patronage, social, exchanges, safe, inclusive, incubator, artists, architects, poets, writers, institutionalization, global, globalism, Al-Alamiyah, local, modernism, modernist, post-WWII, 20th century, development, modernization, Jewad Selim, Faik Hassan, Isa Hanna, Jamil Hamoudi, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Rifat Chadirji, Ellen Jawdat, Société Primitive (Al-Jama'ah Al-Bida'iyah), Pioneers Group (Jama'at Al-Ruwwad), SP, Baghdad Group for Modern Art (Jama'at Baghdad lil-Fann Al-Hadith), Iraqi Impressionists Group (Jama'at Al-Intiba'iyin Al-'Iraqiyin), Friends of Art Society (Jam'iyat Asdiqa' Al-Fann), Iraqi Artists Society (Jam'iyat Al-Fannanin Al-'Iraqiyin), Institute of Fine Arts (Ma'had Al-Funun Al-Jamilah), Baghdad, Iraq, South West Asia, Arab world

Image: Family of Hussein Taha al-Nejim