Footnotes

Provenance:
Property from the collection of the renowned architects Nizar Jawdat (1920-2017) and Ellen Jawdat (1921-2020), acquired directly from the artist,
thence by descent to the present owners

Exhibited:
Fourth exhibition of the Baghdad Modern Art group, April 13 - 19, 1956, Institute of Fine Art, Baghdad.


"At the end of each day – Jawad sat in the living room surrounded by our sons, filling sheet after sheet of a small pad of paper with nimble drawings of wild animals in action – tigers, monkeys, crocodiles, elephants and even some imaginary creatures. And as his pencil flew across the paper, he held the children spellbound with tales woven around his jungle beasts. It was his way to relax, and the boys urged him not to stop, even long after their bedtime"

Memoirs of Ellen Jawdat, mother of the present owners

"'You draw on paper, crescents and signs that lead the traveller to your heart, arousing hope in Baghdad, who invited you into her mornings like a woman full of desire. You called your pictures by her name, like a lover who searches in the corners of memory for friendly signs, a square or a rectangle, a suggestion of a palm tree or a coffee pot, or the faces of tired women in love, hovering between al-Risafa and al-Karkh, between the beginning and the end of a dream ?" - Dia Azzawi "A Homages to Jewad Selim"

Painted when Jewad Selim was firmly recognised as one of the leading luminaries of the Iraqi art scene, Arab with Horse is a rare and captivating composition which participated in the landmark fourth exhibition of the Baghdad Modern Art Group in 1956, a demonstration of the remarkable longevity, appeal, and success of the group which Selim himself co-founded.

One of Selim's most enthralling works, "Man and Horse", is a stunning combination of the artistic dexterity and tonal richness of Selim's work, with thematic and aesthetic inspiration drawn from his ever-present subject matter: the rich landscape of urban life in Baghdad .

"Man With Horse", with its free flowing, curvilinear forms, appears to have a lively and spontaneous feel, a trait Lorna Selim attributed to Jewad's creative process, which was to know exactly what he wanted to paint before picking up his brush and often completing works in just a few hours. Jewad's innovation of integration of Iraqi and European ideas creates a work that is a perfect fusion of styles.

The two figures meet heads in a tender, thoughtful embrace, they bear round faces with large open eyes and simply delineated noses, not unlike figures of the two European masters Modigliani and Picasso which Selim so admired. Block colours, abstract fauna and shapes fill the ground, curiously blending visual cues both from European Modernism and from the decoration on medieval figural lustre ceramics of the Abbasid era.

After painting his most mature works in the 1950s, the artist gave up painting and focussed on sculpture, the culmination of which was his Monument for Freedom in Tahrir Square in Baghdad of 1960-61. This was the largest monument built in Iraq in 2500 years ". The time frame presented by the President was unrealistic and the project did not run smoothly. Immense pressure was put on Jewad to finish his work and he suffered a heart-attack. He died one week later on 23rd January 1961 at the age of just forty-one, leaving a wife and two young daughters.