Ismail Fattah was one of Iraq’s leading contemporary artists, known for his sculptures influenced by Sumerian and Babylonian figures and his figurative paintings. He was a founding member of influential collective New Vision and exhibited his work at their first group show in 1969. Fattah executed many of Baghdad’s public sculptures, best-known of which is Nusb Al-Shahid, or the Monument of the Martyr, commemorating fallen soldiers of the 1979-88 Iran-Iraq War.

Fattah’s 1980 bronze sculpture Man and Mask is permanently displayed in the grounds of Darat al Funun, overlooking the city of Amman.