We have commissioned weekly cartoons by Iraqi caricaturist Khudair Alhimyari. This month’s theme is Back to School, and the artist will be commenting on the art schools and other educational institutions in Iraq, which suffer from a lack of funds.

Below, the school calendar kicks out art lessons from the timetable. Art lessons are being removed from the school curriculum in primary and secondary schools across Iraq, particularly in the country’s poorer areas.

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Alhimyari comments on art professors who try to impose their own vision on their students. The professor demands that his students draw a palm tree, based on his own drawing of the tree on the blackboard.

palmtree

Below is a comment on artistic originality.

September 2

In the cartoon below, the teacher tells his students: “Art depends mainly on imagination… so imagine that you have a model, a palette, colors, brushes and paint whatever you like …. we have no funds.”

September1