Study for The Epic of Gilgamesh: Gilgamesh's Defeat

In 1965-67, Iraqi artist Dia al-Azzawi created a series of works in ink and metallic paint on paper inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh, Titled Studies for The Epic of Gilgamesh, Azzawi’s works incorporate elements of Sumerian art of the third millennium BCE, geometric motifs from contemporary Iraqi "Samawa-style" carpets, mid-century poster design, and an approach to figuration that recalls Picasso’s drawing and painting of the late 1930s.
Since the 1960s, Iraqi artist Dia al-Azzawi has produced a versatile, wide-ranging body of work that spans multiple media. During the early period of his career, he was particularly influenced by the ancient art of Iraq, in which he was immersed while studying archaeology at the University of Baghdad and later as a director of the Iraqi Antiquities Department from 1968-1976. In 1965, the great Iraqi archaeologist Taha Baqir, who had been one of Azzawi’s professors, introduced him to the Epic of Gilgamesh, which Baqir had recently edited and published in Arabic. First written down around 2100 BCE and widely known as the world’s earliest epic, the story recounts the struggles and achievements of Gilgamesh, the semi-divine legendary king of the Sumerian city of Uruk in what is now Iraq. Baqir was preparing to publish excerpts of the text in the magazine al-‘Āmilūn fi’l-Nafṭ (Oil Workers), and the magazine’s editor Jabra Ibrahim Jabra invited Azzawi to contribute illustrations. Azzawi took up themes from the epic again in 1966-67 in a number of ink and metallic paint works on paper, conceived as individual paintings rather than a series.

Inspiration from Sumerian art of the third millennium BCE is evident in Azzawi’s Studies, with their frontal figures whose large, wide-open eyes recall the votive statues excavated from temples in the Diyala region of eastern central Iraq (see for example, in The Met’s collection, 40.156). Azzawi would return to both Gilgamesh and the wide-eyed Sumerian sculptures many times in his work, finding rich inspiration for his own creative endeavors, which he saw as fundamentally tied to both his contemporaries and his ancient forerunners.



A bearded figure with upraised arms fills the field, his eye sockets blank and skeletal and his body dissolving into geometric patterning. A crescent and disc appear at bottom left against a silver background, which also covers the figure’s hands and face.