Lorna Selim

(Iraq, 1928-2021)

Architectural Composition II

Footnotes

Provenance:
Property from a private collection, England
Formerly property from the collection of the renowned Iraqi architect Said Ali Madhloom (1921-2017)
Acquired directly from the artist by the above

Bonhams is privileged to present a highly significant and comprehensive set of works by the female artist Lorna Selim. Born in 1928 in Sheffield, Lorna was the wife of the renowned Iraqi modernist Jewad Selim. She received a scholarship to study at the Slade School of Fine Arts in London where she received a diploma in painting and design in 1948. It was there that she met Jewad Selim and in 1950 they got married in Baghdad. She became a member of the Bagdad Modern Art Group founded by her husband and Shakir Hassan Al Said and became a prominent figure in Baghdad's art scene.

In 1961, Jewad Selim passed away suddenly at the age of only 41 years old in the midst of a project to complete a major monumental sculpture entitled Nasb Al Hurriyah or "The Freedom Monument" for the Baghdad's city centre. Following his death, Lorna, along with architect Rifat Chadirji supervised the completion of this iconic monument.

In the 1960s, Lorna taught drawing at Baghdad University's Department of Architecture headed by the prominent Iraqi architect Mohamed Makiya. As a teacher she encouraged her students to sketch structures along the Tigris and exposed her young architects to Iraq's vernacular structures, alley-ways and historical monuments. This work cultivated and inspired a generation of architects to consider including Iraqi design alongside modern Western architecture in their designs.

Lorna was fascinated by the traditional Iraqi housing found along the banks of the Tigris river, from the bayoot (houses) and the mudhif (reed dwellings). Not long after her arrival in Baghdad, the city underwent a period of "modernisation," and many traditional houses were being demolished. She would rush to make sketches of the structures before they were lost permanently. Lorna began by sketching a building then she would return home to start the layout of the painting. She would then return to the building to sketch the finer details and note down the colours. Between 1957 and 1963, she sketched many vernacular buildings and homes.

Lorna illustrates Baghdad's architecture in her work through abstract forms of simple lines giving hieratic postures to the figures in their daily lives. And with an earthy colour palette, she celebrates the ancient culture from Mesopotamia using symbols from the Iraqi environment such as palm trees or crescent.