Ismail Fattah studied under the instruction of Jewad Selim at the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad receiving a diploma in painting in 1956, and in sculpture in 1958. He later moved to Rome, Italy to study sculpture at the Accademia di Belle Arti, and ceramics at the Academia San Giacomo, in 1963. Returning to Baghdad in 1965, Fattah taught ceramics and sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts until the late 1990s. He was president of the Society of Iraqi Artists for Abstract Art, from 1971–1978 and a founding member of the influential New Vision and the Baghdad Modern Art Group.
Fattah created numerous public sculptures in Baghdad, the most prominent being “The Monument of the Martyr” to commemorate the fallen soldiers of the 1979-1988 Iran-Iraq war. Fattah held numerous solo and group exhibitions displaying both sculptures and paintings, in Rome, Baghdad, London and Beirut and participated in the Venice Biennale in 1976.
His work is held in private and public collections including Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha; Kinda Foundation, Saudi Arabia; Darat al-Funun, The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman and the Museum of Modern Art, Baghdad.
Towards the end of his life Fattah lived and worked in Qatar. He died in Baghdad on 22 July 2004.
