Lorna Selim

Lorna Selim
Born 1928
Sheffield, UK
Died 2012
Wales
Nationality English/ Iraqi
Education Slade School of Fine Art (1948); London University Institute of Education (1949)
Known for Painter and educator
Spouse(s) Jawad Saleem

Lorna Selim (1928- 2012) was an English artist and art teacher, who married a prominent Iraqi sculptor and relocated to Baghdad in the 1950s. She was a practising artist and contributed to arts community in Iraq through her exhibitions, teaching and active participation in arts groups. After her husband's premature death in 1961, she was part of the team responsible for completing his iconic monumental work, Nasb al-Hurriyah.

Life and career

Although Lorna Selim is well-known as the English wife of the prominent Iraqi sculptor, Jawad Saleem, she was also a capable and influential artist in her own right. She is always listed as an Iraqi artist from the pioneer generation.[1]

Born in Sheffield in 1928, Lorna received a scholarship to study at the Slade School of Fine Arts, London, graduating with a Diploma in Painting and Design in 1948. The following year she received an Art Teachers’ Diploma from the London University Institute of Education.[2]

From 1949–50 she taught art at the Tapton House Grammar School, Chesterfield. In England, she met the Iraqi artist and sculptor, Jawad Saleem, who was also studying at the Slade School, and the pair married in 1950. Following their marriage, the couple relocated to Baghdad. An Iraqi art critic noted that:[3]

"Lorna came to Iraq and saw beauty where none of the rest of us had noticed it before. Other artists began to study the rich artistic tradition which had been under their noses all along. She has had a profound influence."

Secondary School Street by Lorna Selim, 1977. Sketch showing distinctive mashrabiya (oriel windows) found in Baghdad's older alleyways and streets

She was fascinated by the traditional Iraqi housing found along the banks of the Tigris - the bayt (houses) and the mudhif (or reed dwelling).[4] Not long after her arrival in Baghdad, the city underwent a period of "modernisation," and many traditional houses were being demolished.[5] She would rush to make sketches of the structures before they were lost permanently. Sketching an outline of buildings, intending to return and fill in the details later, she all too often discovered that the building was gone at the time of her return. By painstakingly locating other similar houses in the area, she was able to fill in the architectural details and complete the sketches. Between 1957 and 1963, she sketched hundreds of vernacular buildings and homes.[6]

Lorna Selim was very active in Iraq's arts community through her participation in important arts groups. She became a member of the Art Friends Society, and Society of Iraqi Plastic Artists.[7] and the influential The Baghdad Modern Art Group which had been founded by her husband, Jawad Saleem and Shakir Hassan Al Said.[8] Three years after its inception, the Baghdad Modern Art Group had just sixteen members and notably three of these were female artists; in addition to Lorna Selim were artists Susan al-Sheikhly (wife of Ismail al-Sheikhly) and Lisa Fatah (1941–1992) first wife of sculptor, Ismail Fatah Al Turk.[9]

She exhibited her work in first exhibition of the Baghdad Modern Art Group.[10] She participated in the Iraqi Pavilion Design for the International Fair held in Damascus in 1954.[11]

Her husband, Jawad Saleem, died suddenly in 1961 at the age of 41 years, in the midst of a project to complete a major monumental sculpture, The Freedom Monument, for Baghdad's city centre. Following his death, she, along with Iraqi sculptor Mohammed Ghani Hikmat, supervised the completion of the iconic monument.[12] Hikmat, who was a good friend of both Lorna and Jawad Saleem, had previously been an assistant on the project and was responsible for casting the bronze figures.[13]

She was an art teacher at Ta’ssisiya School, Baghdad, in 1951; the Girls College in 1961;[14] and also taught drawing at Baghdad University's Department of Architecture, headed by Mohammed Makiya, in the 1960s. As an educator, she took her students to sketch structures along the Tigris and was especially interested in exposing young architects to Iraq's vernacular structures, alley-ways and historical monuments. This work inspired a generation of architects to consider including traditional design features - such as Iraqi practices of temperature control, natural ventilation, courtyards, screen walls and reflected light - in their designs.[15]

She spent her later years in Abergavenny, Wales and died there in 2012.[16]

Work

Her work is held in permanent collections including the Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha and elsehwere.[17]

Legacy

She is the subject of a non-fiction book by Iraqi journalist, Inaam Kachachi entitled Lorna, Her Years with Jawad Selim published in Arabic by Dar el-Jadid of Beirut in 1998

See also

References

  1. ↑ Nusair, I., "The Cultural Costs of the 2003 US-Led Invasion of Iraq: A Conversation with Art Historian Nada Shabout," Feminist Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (2013), p. 128 Online:
  2. ↑ Shabout, N. (ed), A Century of Iraqi Art, Bonham's of London, 2015 [Illustrated Catalog to accompany sale, Monday 20 April 2015, p.`24
  3. ↑ Streithorts, T., "Jewad and Lorna Selim", Middle East Archive, vol. 33, no. 1 (January), 1958, pp. 20-22 (accessible via Modern Art Iraq Archive, Item #198, Online:)
  4. ↑ Selim, L., in correspondence with website by author of Memories of Eden, Online:
  5. ↑ Pieri, C., "Baghdad 1921-1958. Reflections on History as a ”strategy of vigilance”," Mona Deeb, World Congress for Middle-Eastern Studies, Jun 2005, Amman, Jordan. Al-Nashra, vol. 8, no 1-2, pp.69-93, 2006
  6. ↑ Selim, L., in correspondence with website by author of Memories of Eden, Online:
  7. ↑ "Lorna Saleem," [Biograpical Notes], Online:
  8. ↑ Nusair, I., "The Cultural Costs of the 2003 US-Led Invasion of Iraq: A Conversation with Art Historian Nada Shabout," Feminist Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (2013), p. 128 Online:
  9. ↑ Nusair, I., "The Cultural Costs of the 2003 US-Led Invasion of Iraq: A Conversation with Art Historian Nada Shabout," Feminist Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (2013), p. 128 Online:
  10. ↑ Nusair, I., "The Cultural Costs of the 2003 US-Led Invasion of Iraq: A Conversation with Art Historian Nada Shabout," Feminist Studies, Vol. 39, No. 1 (2013), p. 128 Online:; Shabout, N. (ed), A Century of Iraqi Art, Bonham's of London, 2015 [Illustrated Catalog to accompany sale, Monday 20 April 2015, p.`24
  11. ↑ Shabout, N. (ed), A Century of Iraqi Art, Bonham's of London, 2015 [Illustrated Catalog to accompany sale, Monday 20 April 2015, p.`24
  12. ↑ Shabout, N. (ed), A Century of Iraqi Art, Bonham's of London, 2015 [Illustrated Catalog to accompany sale, Monday 20 April 2015, p.`24
  13. ↑ Greenberg, N., "Political Modernism, Jabrā, and the Baghdad Modern Art Group," CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2010, Online:, DOI: 10.7771/1481-4374.160; Floyd, T., "Mohammed Ghani Hikmat," [Biographical Notes] in: Mathaf Encyclopedia of Modern Art and the Islamic World, Online:
  14. ↑ Shabout, N. (ed), A Century of Iraqi Art, Bonham's of London, 2015 [Illustrated Catalog to accompany sale, Monday 20 April 2015, p.`24
  15. ↑ Uduku, O. Stanek, L., al-Silq, G., Bujas, P. and Gzowska, A., Architectural Pedagogy in Kumasi, Baghdad and Szczecin, in: Beatriz Colomina and Evangelos KotsiorisRadical Pedagogies, 2015
  16. ↑ Shabout, N. (ed), A Century of Iraqi Art, Bonham's of London, 2015 [Illustrated Catalog to accompany sale, Monday 20 April 2015, p.`24
  17. ↑ Shabout, N. (ed), A Century of Iraqi Art, Bonham's of London, 2015 [Illustrated Catalog to accompany sale, Monday 20 April 2015, p.`24
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