Rafa Nasiri and May Muzaffar Collection

Rafa Nasiri (1940–2013) is considered one of the most influential Iraqi artists of the twentieth century, due to his international experience and experimental interest in material techniques across painting, printmaking, graphic design, and book arts. Nasiri was a central participant in numerous Iraqi and Arab artists' groups and initiatives, among them the New Vision group (est. 1969) and the One Dimension group (est. 1970s). He is celebrated for deriving strategies from East Asian arts for incorporating Arabic calligraphic forms into his paintings and prints in elegantly modern ways. Later in his career, Nasiri undertook a sustained interest in making art books as a medium.

Rafa Nasiri was born in Tikrit in 1940. He graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad, with a diploma in painting in 1959. In his last year of study, he was drawn to a collection of watercolors and Chinese ink prints from an exhibition of Chinese antiques and masterpieces on display in the main hall of the Institute. From 1959 to 1963, Rafa Nasiri moved to Beijing to study printmaking at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Among his teachers was Huang Yu Yi, who taught Nasiri the traditional ways of applying color, and trained him on accuracy, speed and attention in printmaking. The teacher also shared with the artist the latest art books and magazines that arrived from Hong Kong, and that would allow them both to follow the art trends of the West while being in close contact with the contemporary Chinese art at the time. Throughout the years of his study, and until graduation from Beijing with a Bachelor of Arts, Nasiri exchanged letters and postcards with his family in Baghdad. Much of this correspondence survives in his archive today. In the summer of 1965, Rafa Nasiri went on a two-month road trip with two of his brothers, in which they visited twenty-four Arab and European countries. The artist came into direct contact with Western art at museums and other locations that can be traced in his slide collection of photographs taken during the trip. He also visited Museo del Prado, the Louvre, the British Museum, and Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, which allowed him to see paintings by Velasquez, Goya, and El Greco, Rubens, Rembrandt, Turner and the expressionists in person. In 1964, Nasiri joined the faculty of the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad. A couple of years later, Nasiri received a scholarship from The Gulbenkian Foundation to study at The Gravura, in Lisbon, Portugal, where he received a diploma in printmaking. In his collection are photos taken with his colleagues Hashim Samarchi and Salim Al Dabbagh of their participation in the 1968 graphic art exhibitions at The Gravura.

He returned to Baghdad in the aftermath of the defeat of the Arabs in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. In response to this major setback, he and colleagues Dia al-Azzawi, Ismail Fattah, Mohammed Muhreddin, Hashim Samarchi, and Saleh al-Jumaie co-founded the New Vision Group in Baghdad in 1969 and issued a manifesto. The collection includes photographs of the group's exhibition at Baghdad's Museum of Modern Art, also known as the Gulbenkian Hall.

A two-year relationship with the emerging poet and art critic May Muzaffar culminated in marriage on the final day of 1973. They started traveling together, and Muzaffar accompanied Nasiri to his artist residencies including to his training at the International Summer Academy in Salzburg in 1974-1975. Nasiri also built a printing press for his own use and moved it to his house in Baghdad, eventually dedicating a space of its own for the press that could also be used by other artists. Rafa Nasiri's Graphic Studio, "Al Muhtaraf," was located in Al Mansour neighborhood from mid 1980s until 1991.

In 1974, Rafa Nasiri founded the Graphic Department at the Institute of Fine Arts, which he directed until his retirement in 1989. In 1991, Nasiri accepted an invitation to teach at Yarmouk University in Irbid, Jordan, located 95 km north of the capital Amman, and the couple left Iraq. Nasiri and Muzaffar lived in Irbid but Nasiri kept a studio in Amman, he also taught printmaking at Darat al Funun in Amman. During this decade, many Iraqi artists including Shakir Hassan Al Said and Ali Taleb were active in the Jordanian scene. Nasiri's views on their activities are included in his memoirs.

In addition to teaching graphic arts and design, Nasiri traveled to participate in exhibitions and events around the world, earning prizes from the International Graphic Biennial, Fredrikstad (1978) and Baghdad Festival of Arts (1986), among others. He also served as jury member in major art events such as the Third World Biennial of Graphic Art, London (1980), Intergrafik, Berlin (1987), International Graphic Triennial, Fredrikstad (1995), and International Graphic Triennial in Cairo (1997). Beginning with the first iteration of the Cultural Moussem of Asilah in Morocco, in 1978, Nasiri and Muzaffar regularly attended and contributed to the building of the printmaking studio in this annual gathering of artists. Materials in the collection document the rich art and literary encounters in Asilah as well as the extended trips the couple made in the region.

Between 1997 and 2003, Nasiri took a new position as lecturer at the University of Bahrain in Manama, where he was also the director of the Bahrain Center for the Fine Arts and Tradition. There he started his series Homage to al-Mutanabi, a series of paintings on canvas and paper, prints, and also artist books produced over several years.

In 2003, Nasiri and Muzaffar returned to Amman and settled in a flat in Jabal Amman with a studio in Jabal al Weibdeh , known as an arts-rich neighborhood. In 2009, Nasiri was diagnosed with prostate cancer, yet he continued to work through his chemotherapy treatment. Among the works he completed in this phase was a collection titled Homage to Ibn Zaydoun. His final exhibitions were two retrospectives in 2013: 50 Years of Painting and Printmaking at the Jordan National Gallery for Fine Arts, Amman, and another at The Financial Harbour Art Gallery, Manama. His authored books include Horizons and Mirrors (2005) and My Journey to China (2012).

Nasiri passed away in Amman in 2013.

May Muzaffar (1940– ) is a poet, short-story writer, critic, editor, and translator. She was born in Baghdad in 1940. Muzaffar studied English Literature at the University of Baghdad and pursued additional studies in Arabic language with prominent religious and literary figures in Baghdad before forging close friendships with key literary figures of the time such as Najib al-Maniʿ, Nizar Qabbani, and Ferial Ghazoul. While starting her career in an insurance company, Muzaffar self-developed skills in oral recitation of poetry and in criticism. She was an active member of Baghdad's art scene. Her poetry books include Nocturnes (1994), Mail from the Orient (2003), and Absence (2014). She translated several books into Arabic that are related to literature and art, including Etel Adnan's novel Paris When It's Naked. A collection of her essays were published in Modern Art in Iraq: Continuity and Differentiation (2015) and she has served as a contributing editor to the Bahraini literary journal Thaqafat. Other books include Anā wa-Rāfiʻ al-Nāṣirī: Sīrat al-Māʼ wa-al-Nār (2021), which was published in English translation as Story of Water and Fire (Berlin: al Mawrid Arab Center for the Study of Art and Hatje Cantz, 2023). She has written numerous volumes devoted to analysis of the work of Rafa Nasiri including Rafa Nasiri: 50 Years of Printmaking (2013). Muzaffar continues to live in Amman, Jordan, and manages Rafa Nasiri Studio in Jabal al Weibdeh, and the annual Rafa Nasiri Graphic Arts Award which honors Rafa's art and life achievements. She maintains the website of Rafa Nasiri and publishes some documentation of his work http://rafanasiri.com.