Footnotes

Provenance:
Property from the Estate of the Artist

Exhibited:
Fourth Exhibition of the Baghdad Modern Art Group, Baghdad, Institute of Fine Arts, 1956.
Jewad Selim, Baghdad, The National Museum of Modern Art, 1968.
Jewad Selim: A New Life, Bonhams, London 2025

Published:
Exhibition Catalogue, Fourth Exhibition of the Baghdad Modern Art Group, Baghdad, Institute of Fine Arts, 1956.
Exhibition Catalogue, Jewad Selim, Baghdad, The National Museum of Modern Art, 1968
Nima Sagharchi and Zaineb Jewad Selim, Jewad Selim: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Sculptures, 2025, Skira Editore (catalogue number JSS.46)

A rare 1955 sculpture by Jewad Selim from the collection of the artist's family, featuring at the artists major 1968 Retrospective in the National Museum of Modern Art, Baghdad


"Our work is focused on restoring the dream of the infinitely colourful Arab culture described in the history books and seen in Arab decorative art. We want to go even beyond this, to take into account the art of the people who have lived in the embrace of the two rivers for thousands of years, the originators of the small and beautiful statues made from the clay of this land."
- Jewad Selim

Jewad Selim's Head (1955) is an important example of the artist's mature work and his deep interest in the connections between ancient art and modern form. Made from terracotta, the piece was featured in the Fourth Exhibition of the Baghdad Modern Art Group in 1956 and later shown in Selim's major 1968 retrospective at the National Museum of Modern Art in Baghdad. It is one of the artist's most recognisable sculptural works and was also documented in photographs from the 1956 show.

The piece reflects Selim's fascination with ancient Mesopotamian statuary and the way many early cultures gave human form to everyday objects. In Head, the shape of a simple vessel is turned into a stylised human face. This approach echoes ancient traditions where pots, tools, and religious items often took on anthropomorphic features. Selim's training at the Slade School of Fine Art in London included modern pottery techniques, and this background helped him combine historical inspiration with a modern sense of design and material handling.

Similar ideas can be seen in the work of 20th-century artists like Picasso, who also explored how ceramics could blur the line between object and image. Like them, Selim saw clay not just as a material for utility, but as a way to express identity, presence, and memory.

The work remained in the artist's family collection for decades and was brought to the UK by his daughters. It has been carefully kept and regarded as one of the most personal pieces from Selim's later years - a quiet but powerful example of how traditional forms and materials were reimagined by one of the leading artists of Iraq's modern art movement.