Photographs by Latif al-Ani

Latif al-Ani (Arabic: لطيف العاني, 1932 - 18 November 2021) was an Iraqi photographer, often known as "the father of Iraqi photography" and noted for his photographic works that combine both ancient and modern themes. During his active career from the 1950s through to the late 1970s, he chronicled an Iraqi way of life that was rapidly being lost as the country embarked on a modernization program. He documented people, ancient monuments and many facets of urban life in Iraq. He stopped taking photographs following the rise of Saddam Hussein, as he was unable to maintain his former optimistic outlook for Iraq's future.
Latif al-Ani was born in Baghdad in 1932. During his childhood, relatively few commercial photographers were operating in Iraq. The social and religious prohibitions on making images and figurative representations meant that Iraq was relatively late-adopter of photography and cinematography. A handful of photographers and film-makers, such as Abd al-Karim Tiouti and Murad al-Daghistani, had been operating in Basra and Mosul since the late 19th-century and the early 20th-century, but opportunities for young Iraqis to learn the art of photography were rare. It was not until the late 1940s, when al-Ani was an adolescent that the number of commercial photographic studios in Iraq's major cities, including Baghdad, proliferated.
Al-Ani was first exposed to photography when, as a boy, he would help in his older brother's Mutanabbi Street shop which was adjacent to the studio of a Jewish photographer, by the name of Nissan. The young Al-Ani was fascinated. Noting the boy's interest, al-Ani's brother bought him a camera, a Kodak box, in around 1947, when al-Ani was 15 years. After that, the camera never left his side. His earliest photos were of the everyday scenes and objects in his immediate surroundings- street life, palms, plants, faces and people on rooftops. This type of subject matter would become a recurring theme in his work.
After al-Ani's retirement, his work was virtually forgotten. He recalled stopping at a news kiosk in 2005 where they were giving away free calendars; and upon inspection, he realized that more than half of the photographs were his own work, but reproduced without any attribution to him since no one knew the photographer. His contribution to Iraqi art and culture was 'rediscovered' by a team from the Ruya Foundation, who were working to preserve Iraq's artistic heritage and came across al-Ani's collection. In late 2017, they mounted a solo exhibition of Al-Ani's work at Coningsby Gallery in London. This event, combined with the publication of a monograph about the artist, stirred considerable interest in the photographer and his work.
Al-Ani died on 18 November 2021, at the age of 89 in Baghdad.
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