Jewad Selim

Abstract

Jewad Selim (1919–1961), the renowned Iraqi painter and sculptor, grew up in a family of artists and received government scholarships to study sculpture in Paris (1939–1940), Rome (1940), and London (1946–1949). With his studies interrupted from 1940 to 1945 by World War II, Jewad established the sculpture section at the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad and became a member of the Friends of Art Group. In 1949, Jewad was appointed Head of Sculpture at the Institute of Fine Arts and spent a busy decade teaching, creating his own distinctive style of sculpture and painting, organising exhibitions at home and abroad, and establishing the Baghdad Modern Art Group. In 1953, Jewad won a prize at the international competition for a piece of sculpture to symbolise the theme of The Unknown Political Prisoner, and in 1954 was the first Iraqi artist to have a one-person exhibition in the US. In 1959, Jewad was commissioned to create a monumental sculptural relief to commemorate the 14 July Revolution, which the Iraqi people today know as the Freedom Monument.

Biography​​

Early life (1919–1938)

The Iraqi painter and sculptor Jewad Selim was one of the leading artists of the modernist art movement of the 1940s and 1950s. He is most famous for promoting sculpture for the people and embodying the artistic tradition of his country within the various media of modern art. Born in 1919 or 1920 in Ankara or Baghdad (the latter according to the Salim family’s naturalisation certificate), his father al-Haj Muhammad Salim Ali al-Mosuli (1883–1941) was an accomplished amateur artist in his own right who had been educated at the Imperial School of Military Engineering in Istanbul. There he was taught artistic skills for use in drawing maps, battle scenes, and engineering works. He and his family continued to live in Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman regime and were domiciled in Ankara. In 1925, the Salim family returned to Baghdad, where al-Haj Salim worked as a civil servant and art tutor. Selim lived with his parents, three brothers, and a sister in one of the old traditional houses in the al-Fadhil area of Baghdad; the family acquired Iraqi citizenship in 1928.

In Baghdad, Jewad attended primary school (1927–1933), middle school (1933–1936), and the science stream at the al-Markaziya (Central) High School (1936–1938). Jewad’s artistic talent was recognised early on and nurtured by a set of inspirational teachers, including Hafidh al-Droubi (1914–1991) and Ata Sabri (1913–1987), who would themselves go on to become prominent Iraqi artists. Jewad was an expert draughtsman and had attained considerable skill in oils and watercolour by the time he was in his late teens. He also worked on small sculptures, probably self-taught, exhibiting several of them at the First Agricultural and Industrial Fair in Baghdad in 1932, where he won a bronze medal for a gypsum bust of King Faisal I. Jewad’s drawing talent is aptly illustrated by his collection of signed portraits of famous guitarists held by the Mathaf Museum of Modern Art, Doha.

Study in Paris, Rome, and London, and the intervening war years (1938–1949)

In the 1930s, the Government of Iraq instituted a programme for secondary school-educated Iraqis to study abroad. In 1938, Selimregistered at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and was assigned to the atelier of Marcel Gaumont (1880–1962), a French sculptor who created bas-reliefs on buildings. He explored the city of Paris in his leisure time and was struck by the abundance of modern, expressive sculptures adorning its buildings and public parks. At the outbreak of the Second World War in the month of September 1939, Selim transferred to the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, where he was tutored in sculpture in the studio of Angelo Zanelli (1879–1942), an Italian sculptor who was also specialised in public monuments and sculptures. When Italy joined the war in June 1940, he returned to Baghdad. On the basis of two years study abroad, Selim was entrusted by the Institute of Fine Arts in Baghdad (IFA) to set up a new sculpture section; the painting section of Faiq Hassan (1914–1992) had already been established at the Institute for some years. Selim taught sculpture and the history of art as an elective subject for at least five students, both men and women, some of whom were enrolled at one of the city’s teacher training colleges. Two of these students, Khalid Al Rahhal (1926–1986) and Jamil Hamoudi (1924–2003), went on to have prominent careers in the arts.

As his teaching duties were part-time, Selim was able to work on several new ideas for paintings and sculptures, benefitting greatly from encounters with professional Polish and English artists stationed as soldiers in Baghdad. In 1941, he became a member of the new Friends of Art group, founded by Akram Shukri (1910–1983), Issa Hanna (1919–2006), and Karim Majeed. Exhibition catalogues for the group (held by the archives of the American University of Beirut) provide an invaluable record of the group’s participants and wide range of artworks and media shown publicly. Selim himself exhibited oil paintings and sculptures in a European style, including a life-sized gypsum copy of an Assyrian bas-relief. In 1944, he took up guitar lessons with Enyss Djemil (1917–2014; later known as Francis-Paul Demillac), who at the time was teaching Middle Eastern stringed instruments at the IFA. Playing the guitar was to provide Selim with a lifetime of peace and relaxation from the rigours of his hectic professional life.

Selim and other fellow art students whose studies abroad had been similarly interrupted were recruited by Sati’ al-Husry (1880–1968), director of antiquities at the Iraq Museum, to help restore ancient artefacts under the expert guidance of the archaeologist Seton Lloyd (1902–1996). This was an invaluable experience that provided the students with direct contact to their ancient artistic heritage. One day Selim’s friend and fellow artist Ata Sabri brought to work a French magazine he had acquired in Paris before the war. It featured an article by the art historian Eustache de Lorey (1875–1953) about an illuminated manuscript (Arabe 5847, Bibliothèque Nationale de France) of The Maqamat by al-Hariri of Basra (1054–1122), dated 1237 and illustrated by Yahyah al-Wasiti, a member of the Baghdad School of Painting, a late-twelfth century Islamic art movement hitherto unknown to Selim. This encounter was to change the course of his artistic life in later years.

After the war came to an end, Selim enrolled at the Slade School of Art in October 1946, undertaking a three-year diploma in sculpture. In addition to his studies, he continued to work on personal art projects, and visited numerous art galleries and museums to study African, ancient Egyptian, and Mesopotamian art, as well as the sculptures of Henry Moore (1898–1986). At the end of his first year, Selim won first prize in figurative sculpture at the Slade School. Unfortunately, no surviving photograph of the sculpture exists.

In 1947, Selim got to know and subsequently fell in love with his future wife, fellow student Lorna Beryl Hales (1928–2021), who was studying drawing, painting, design, anatomy and the history of art at the Slade. Hales and Selim discovered they shared an interest in music and the arts and together attended numerous concerts, plays, ballets, and films. In the spring of 1949, Selim and his friends Hafidh al-Droubi and Ata Sabri organised an exhibition sponsored by the Anglo-Iraqi Society entitled First exhibition of paintings and sculpture by Iraqi Artists at present in England. Selim exhibited oil paintings and three ceramics and his work was singled out for praise by the well-known art critic Maurice Collis (1889–1973) in a 1949 Art News article entitled ‘Paintings by Iraqi Artists’.

Jewad with Lorna in Baghdad (1949–1959)

Selim obtained his diploma in 1949 and returned to Baghdad to begin his academic and artistic career. During the following decade he headed the sculpture section at the IFA, created sculptures in his own modern style, and painted his distinctive mature pieces. A number of his sculpture students during this era would soon become artists in their own right, most notably Mohammed Ghani Hikmat (1929–2011). Jewad and his colleague Faiq Hassan (1914–1992), head of painting at the IFA, organised numerous exhibitions in Baghdad along with representing their country in art exhibitions abroad. In 1950, he held his first solo exhibition at the home of the architect couple Ellen Ali Jawdat al-Ayoubi (1921–2020) and Nizar Ali Jawdat al-Ayoubi (1920–2017).

After years of study abroad and contemplating the direction his work should take during the intervening war years in Baghdad, Selim was bursting with new ideas. In his estimation, it was not enough to merely copy European art styles; he wanted to take Iraqi art in a new direction. In collaboration with the artist and sociologist Shakir Hassan Al Said (1925–2004), Selimfounded the Baghdad Modern Art Group (BMAG) in 1951, whose vision was to promote a style of art that reflected the traditions of Iraqi art yet at the same time would fit within the contemporary world art scene. It was not as restrictive as it sounds; members were free to use any styles and media they chose. Hales contributed enthusiastically to the group with her paintings of traditional scenes she saw outside their home window.

Selim drew inspiration from various periods of ancient Iraqi art, including Sumerian and Assyrian sculpture and the illustrations of al-Wasiti in the Maqamat al-Hariri. The style and subjects of al-Wasiti’s illustrations provided a model for his series, al-Baghdadiyat, which depicted scenes of everyday life in Baghdad and was painted in a similar style and with a similarly vibrant palette. For his Baghdadiyat, he also chose to incorporate his signature emblems—the crescent as a symbol of the Islamic heritage of his country and the Fertile Crescent, and the brightly colored diamond-shaped inserts, which also feature in many of al-Wasiti’s illustrations. For his experimental works in sculpture, Selim adopted the crescent in a more abstract form. His favourite subjects for sculpture were figures of traditional people, the bull, and in particular, the mother and child.

In 1952, Selim entered an international competition to create a sculpture to symbolise the theme of The Unknown Political Prisoner. He was the only entrant from the Middle East, winning one of the minor prizes (£25). His sculpture was exhibited in 1953 at the Tate Gallery, London, along with those of the other prize winners. He may have had in mind the plight of Iraqi activists who had recently been imprisoned, tortured, and executed for campaigning for better conditions for Iraqi workers. In 1953, Selim was invited by the American Friends of the Middle East to tour major American cities with an exhibition of his paintings and sculptures during March and April of 1954. He was the first Iraqi artist to do anything this ambitious and the invitation signified the start of his international renown. He spent the first part of 1953 preparing for the tour, creating a comprehensive collection of sculptures and paintings in his iconic modern style.

Selim’s artistic output was supplemented with commissioned portraits in oil and pencil, and created colourful designs for book covers, posters, silverware, jewellery, ceramics, illustrations, and greeting cards.

Freedom Monument and legacy (1959–1961)

It had always been Selim’s ambition to create modern public sculptures for the public to enjoy. Towards the end of the 1950s, his art took a new direction and he started to forge collaborative links with some of the eminent architects of Baghdad, such as Dr Mohammed Makiya (1914–2015) and Rifat Chadirji (1926–2020). Selim’s ambition was to incorporate his modern bas-reliefs into the walls and gardens of the modernist buildings being designed by such architects. In 1956, the Society of Iraqi Artists, headed by Dr. Makiya, came into being; its aim was to foster just this type of collaboration. This ambitious direction for Selim was cut short by the 14 July Revolution of 1958, after which he focused his efforts on constructing the sculptures commissioned by Rifat Chadirji to commemorate the 14th of July Revolution. Sponsored by the new regime, this was to be a large bronze bas-relief that would cover a travertine-laid wall. The sculpture was constructed in Italy, which had the necessary facilities for such a large-scale work, and was completed just before Selim’s untimely death from a heart attack in 1961. Selim had realised early on that this was an opportunity he had dreamed of all his life—to provide a message of hope and freedom to the Iraqi people in the style of modernist art. The Monument is now referred to by the people of Iraq as the Freedom Monument.

Bibliography

Al-Bahloly, Saleem, History regained: a modern artist in Baghdad encounters a lost tradition of painting, Muqarnas: an annual on the visual cultures of the Islamic world, Vol. 35, pp. 229–73, Brill, Leiden Boston, 2018

Al-Jadirji, Rif’at, al-Ukhaidhir wa al-Qasr Al-Balluri: Nushu’ al-Nadhariyah al-Jadaliyah fi al-’Imarah (al-Ukhaidhir and the Crystal Palace: The Formation of the Dialectic Theory in Architecture), Riyaḍ ʾal-Rayyis lil-kutub, London,1991.

Jabra, Jabra I., Jawād Salīm wa-Nuṣb al-Ḥurrīyah: dirāsa fī āthārīh wa-ārāʾīhī, (Jewad Selim and the Monument of Freedom: A Study of His Works and Opinions), Wizarat al-I’lam, Mudiriyat al-Thaqafah al-‘Ammah, Baghdad, 1974.

Jabra, Jabra I., Al-Riḥla al-thāmina (The Eighth Voyage). Al-Mu’assat al-Arabiyya al-Dirasat wa al-Nashr, Beirut, 1979.

James, David A., Masterpiece of Arab Painting: The “Schefer” Maqamat Manuscript in Context, East & West Publishing, London, 2013.

de Lorey Eustache, Le Miroir de Bagdad, L’Illustration, no. 4996, 3 December 1938.

Muzaffar, May, al-Fann al-ḥadīth fī al-ʻIrāq: al-tawāṣul wa-al-tamāyuz (Modern Art in Iraq: Communication and Differentiation, al-ʻArabīyah lil-Dirāsāt wa-al-Nashr, Beirut, 2015.

Neame, Alan. "Modern Painting in Iraq" The Studio 754, 1–7, 1956.

Al-Qassab, Khalid, Ḏhikrīyāt Fannīyah (Artistic Memories), Dār al-Hikmat, London, 2007.

Sagharchi Nima, Selim Zaineb Jewad (Eds.), Jewad Selim: Catalogue Raisonné (Paintings and Sculpture), Skira Editore, Milan, 2025.

Āl Saʻīd, Shākir Ḥasan, Jawād Salīm al-fannān wa-al-ākharūn (Jewad Selim: The artist and the Others), dirāsah naqdīyah taḥlīlīyah li-fann: Dār al-Shuʾūn al-Thaqāfīyah al-ʻĀmmah, Āfāq ʻArabīyah, Baghdād. 1991.

Further readings

Bashkin Orit, The Other Iraq: Pluralism and Culture in Hashemite Iraq. Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2009.

Batatu Hanna, The Old Social Classes and The Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq’s Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of its Communists, Ba’thists and Free Officers, al-Saqi, London, 2004.

Dawisha, Adeed, Iraq: A Political History from Independence to Occupation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.

Eigner, Saeb, Artists of the Middle East: 1900 to Now, Thames & Hudson, London.

Faraj, Maysaloun, ed. Strokes of genius: Contemporary Iraqi art. London: Saqi Books, 2001.

Fernea, Robert A., Louis, William R. (eds.). The Iraqi Revolution of 1958: The Old Social Classes Revisited. London: Tauris, 1991.

Jabra, Jabra I., The Grass Roots of Iraqi Art. Wasit Graphic and Publishing Limited, St. Helier, Jersey,1983.

Al-Hariri, Maqamat illustrated by Yahyah al-Wasiti, Oleg Grabar, Facsimile ed., Touch@rt, London, 2003.

Leick, Gwendolyn, Mesopotamia: the Invention of the City, Penguin Press, London, 2001.

Lenssen, Anneka, Rogers, Sarah, Shabout, Nada, Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents. Duke University Press, 2018.

Mitchell T. C., Middleton A. P., The stones used in the Assyrian sculptures, J Cuneiform Studies 54: 93–98, 2002.

Naji, Ahmed, Under the Palm Trees: Modern Iraqi Art with Mohamed Makiya and Jewad Selim, Rizzoli, New York, 2019.

Oates, Joan, Babylon (revised edition), Thames & Hudson, London, 1986.

Reade, Julian, Mesopotamia (2nd Edition), The British Museum Press, London, 1991.

Roux, Georges, Ancient Iraq (3rd edition), Penguin Books, London, 1992.

Rutledge, Ian, Enemy on the Euphrates: The British Occupation of Iraq and the Great Arab Revolt 1914–1921. al-Saqi, ondon, 2014.

al-Sarrāf, Abbas, Jawād Salīm: min risālat Duktūrāh fī al-naqd al-fannī (Jewad Selim: From a doctoral dissertation on art criticism), Silsilah al-fannīyah, no. 12. Mudīrīyat al-Thaqāfah al-‘Āmmah, Baghdad, 1972.