Issam El-Said (1938-88) was a prominent Iraqi artist and calligrapher. He achieved a BA Architecture from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1961; studied art at Hammersmith College of Art and Design, London in 1962-4 and prepared for a PhD on the Methodology of Geometric Proportioning in Islamic Architecture at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1988, which was sadly not completed due to his untimely death that year. Key extracts from his thesis however were published by the Issam El-Said Foundation in a book entitled Islamic Art and Architecture: The System of Geometric Design,1993. El-Said was the co-author of Geometric Concepts in Islamic Art, published by the World of Islam Festival, London, 1976 and contributed numerous articles on Islamic art and architecture which were published in Europe and the USA.
The creative work of Issam El-Said in the form of painting, sculpture, printmaking, calligraphy, design and architectural projects shows his dedication to the expression of the Islamic cultural identity.