Ghani Alani

Born Baghdad, Iraq, 1937

Alani studied law in Baghdad and Paris, and art at the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad, and the University of Paris VII. He practised calligraphy from an early age and studied under the Iraqi master calligrapher Hashem Muhammad al-Baghdadi, from whom he received a calligraphy diploma (ijaza) in 1967. In 1975 he was awarded a second ijaza by another celebrated calligrapher, Hamid al- Amidi of the Ottoman calligraphy school. From then on, having completed his law doctorate, Alani dedicated himself fully to calligraphy. Since 1993 he has been in charge of calligraphy at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure, Paris. He has participated in a number of conferences and television programmes on Arabic calligraphy and has authored several works, including Calligraphie Arabe, 2001. His calligraphies have been shown widely in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.