The Photographs of Kamil Chadirji 1897-1968

Kamil Chadirji (1897-1968) was a prominent photographer and Iraqi.  Chadirji's photographs are especially useful in that they provide insight into institutions that were functioning in the 1930s in Baghdad.  There is a dedicated collection to some of his photographs at the Archnet Digital Archive.  Chadirji was a politician and leader of the National Democratic Party in Iraq until 1960, when opposition was suppressed. 

1. What do these photographs reveal about the priority of important social and cultural institutions in Iraq in the 1930s? 
2. How does Chadirji frame the subject to provide emphasis on their importance or function? 

Rifat Chadirji's The Photography of Kamil Chadirji: Social Life in the Middle East, 1920-1940, (London: I.B. Tauris, 1995) is a useful catalogue and study of his photographs of Iraqi life in the 1920s and 1930s.  

Figure 1.  Kamil Chadirji, Awqaf Public Library, North Gate (Destroyed) Black and white photograph. (1932)
Source:  Archnet Digital Archives

Figure 2.  Kamil Chadirji, Primary Teachers College, Baghdad, Iraq, (1934).
Black and  white photograph.  Source:  Archnet Digital Archives