Naziha Selim

Naziha Selim (1927 to 2008) was an Iraqi painter, born in Turkey, who lived and taught in Baghdad; she was the sister of the sculptor Jewad Selim. Her paintings take up rural life, portraiture, the streets and mosques of Baghdad, and the lives of Iraqi women. Among them are Untitled (1963) and Martyr's Wife (1982).

In the 1940s she studied at Baghdad's Institute of Fine Arts. A scholarship then took her to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where fresco and mural painting were the focus of her training. She was among the founders of Al-Ruwad, the group Faiq Hassan started in 1950. She taught at the Institute of Fine Arts for about two decades, retiring in the early 1980s.

Her book Iraq: Contemporary Art appeared in 1977. In 2022 she was the subject of a Google Doodle, and that year her work could be seen at the Sharjah Art Museum. In 2026 her work is included in What Lingers in the Artist Mind: Experiments and Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha. It is also in All Manner of Experiments: Legacies of the Baghdad Modern Art Group at NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery.