BAGHDAD -- The first art exhibition since the war ended opened in the capital's trendy Hiwar Gallery Sunday, featuring some 20 paintings looted from one of the capital's museums and bought back by the gallery's owner.

"This is my 101st exhibition, called 'Greetings to Baghdad.' I want to pay tribute to the city which will go down in history as one that was burnt, pillaged but always rose from the ashes," said Qassem al-Sabti to AFP.

"We're sure Baghdad will stand tall again," he said, who turned part of his own villa into a gallery back in 1994. He was referring, among other things, to the 1258 Mongol invasion led by Ghengis Khan's great-grandson Hulaga who sacked the city.

"Thirty-nine painters and sculptors from all ages are on display, each brought a new work painted after the war," said Sabti. "There are also paintings and sculptures by some 20 famous Iraqi artists that were looted from Saddam's Center for the Arts and which the gallery bought back from the scoundrels for 6,200 dollars.

"These works of art will then be handed back to the future Museum of Modern Arts," he said. The old museum was burnt to the ground after Saddam regime's was ousted last April. Most of Baghdad's galleries have now re-opened but the exhibition put on by Sabti is the city's first since the war ended.