Mohammed Ghani Hikmat

Mohammed Ghani Hikmat was born in the historic Kazimiyah district of Baghdad and studied under Jawad Saleem before mastering bronze casting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. Returning to Iraq, he devoted his five-decade career to adorning Baghdad's public squares with monumental sculptures inspired by One Thousand and One Nights and Mesopotamian mythology.

His famous works include the Kahramana fountain, the flying carpet monument of Sindbad, and the monument to Al-Mutanabbi. After the looting of the National Museum in 2003, Hikmat tirelessly tracked down stolen national treasures and created his monumental final work, 'Baghdad Saving Culture', before his death in Amman in 2011.