Jewad Selim (Iraq, 1919-1961) Mother and Child macassar ebony and metal wire in two figurines executed in 1953 Height: Mother: 56cm, Child: 27cm Footnotes: MOTHER AND CHILD, AND MOTHERHOOD TWO ICONIC SCULPTURES BY JEWAD SELIM 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 Lorna Selim, the artists wife, by the above, circa 1971 Exhibited: House of Medhat Ali Madhloom, Jewad Selim, Baghdad, 1954 The Jewad Selim Touring Exhibition, organised by the American Friends of the Middle East, March-April 1954: Maine, Portland, L.D.M Sweat Museum, 1954 Philadelphia, De Braux Gallery, 1954 Pittsburgh, Bellefield Avenue Gallery, 1954 Chicago, Headquarters of the Midwestern office of the American Friends of the Middle East, 1954 New York, Middle East House, 1954 Baghdad Exhibition of Paintings and Sculptures, Al Mansur Club under the patronage of the King, February 1956; National Museum of Modern Art, Jewad Selim, Baghdad, January 1968 Published: Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Art in Iraq, Hayat Fil America, No.43, 1966, P26-29 Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Art in Iraq Today, Stephen Austin and Sons, 1961, p.2 Majid Al-Samara'ai, The Baghdad Group for Modern Art: A Year of Giving and Continuity, 1971, Al-Adab 19, June 1971 Exhibition Catalogue, Jewad Selim, National Museum of Modern Art, Baghdad, January 1968 Abbas El-Saraf, Jewad Selim, Baghdad, 1972 Shakir Hassan Al-Said, The History of the Plastic Arts in Iraq Part 1, p.211 Ahmed Naji, Under the Palm Trees, Modern Iraqi Art with Mohamed Makiya and Jewad Selim, 2019, Rizzoli International, Page 86 The present sculptures (lots 16 and 17) are two of Jewad Selim's most emblematic compositions. Instantly recognisable, striking, and deeply symbolic, Motherhood and Mother and Child are signature works by the pioneer of Iraqi modernism. Exhibited, published and critically acclaimed, these works took part in Selim's landmark retrospective exhibition at the Baghdad National Museum in 1968. Executed in divergent mediums and in radically distinctive styles, they nonetheless present us with poignant and penetrating meditations on one of Selim's key artistic subjects: the concept of motherhood Executed upon Jewad's return to Iraq after studying at the Slade, the sculptures are a hallmark representation of the Baghdad Group of Modern Art, with use of traditional Iraqi themes and motif's related within a distinctly modernist visual language. From the collection of the late Said Ali Madhloom who continued to preserve and care for these delicate masterpieces after resettling in the United Kingdom, they carry an immense significance within the history of Iraqi of modernism 'I used to play with the Mother and Child and wanted to bring them with the to England but my mother couldn't, so she left them with Said Ali Madhloom. I am delighted that one of my childhood loves is safe' – Miriam Selim Mother and Child is a remarkably original sculpture and perhaps one of the most unique and distinct creations by Selim. A simplified, semi-abstracted depiction of wire and ebony figurines depicting a mother with open arms ready to embrace her child, the work feels like a wooden transfiguration of Selim's painted works. The sculpture has been shown in over eight major exhibitions, including Jewad's one-man touring show of the United States, a travelling exhibition which would result in a heap of critical acclaim and which was widely reported on in local American media; an extraordinary achievement for a Middle Eastern artist at the time. Stylistically, the work shows clear influence from Modern British sculptural movements active while Selim was studying at Slade in the late 1940's. A combination of the soft lyrical curvature and flowing smoothness of Henry Moore who Jewad Studied under at the Slade, and the distinct, mechanical wire sculptures of the 'Geometry of Fear' movement. The leading protagonist of the Geometry of Fear movement, Reg Butler, was one of Jewad's most notable teachers at the Slade; Butler grew up in the workhouse his parents managed. Close to a maternity ward, an asylum and old people's home, he encountered birth, life, difficulties and death from childhood. This Victorian setting inspired narratives in his art, which he interpreted through a Freudian framework and the human body was his most enduring subject. These complex, sometimes disturbing interpretations of the human form and familiar relations clearly influenced Jewad although Selims own work would exclude some of the darker aspects of the Geometry of Fear movement which placed more emphasis on the distortion of post-War trauma. Selim considered the Mother and Child theme a universal subject 'from the beginning of time'; an 'inexhaustible' motif that offered multiple sculptural possibilities. Throughout his works that deal with this subject matter, Jewad's fixation with the Mother and Child can in some ways be seen in straightforward compositional terms – the relationship of a small form with a big form – and ideas of protection and nurture. Selim's sculptural composition is unlike anything produced in Iraq at the time. In its novel use of material, its anatomical framework, its kineticism it demonstrates the creative power of an artist with a bold and un-daunting conviction in his own originality. A deeply personal sculpture, Mother and Child began life in Selim's own personal collection, and was a favourite toy of the artists daughter Miriam. Upon their sudden departure from Baghdad in 1971, Miriam and Selim's wife Lorna were unable to transport the fragile work to London and decided to give it to Said Ali Madhloom. 'From very early on I had an obsession with the Mother and Child theme - a big form protecting a little form - it has been a universal theme from the beginning of time and some of the earliest sculptures we've found from the Neolithic Age are of a mother and child.' - Henry Moore Jewad Selim (1919-61) It is impossible to understand the modern art movement in Iraq without taking into account the works of this pioneer sculptor and painter, who was undoubtedly the most influential artist in Iraq's modern art movement. To him, art was a tool to reassert national self-esteem and help build a distinctive Iraqi identity. He tried to formulate an intellectual definition for contemporary Iraqi art. In charting his country's contemporary social and political realities, he was committed to combining the indigenous historical and folkloric art forms, with contemporary Western trends. Born in Ankara, Turkey in 1919 to Iraqi parents who moved to Baghdad in 1921, Jewad Selim came from a strongly artistic family: his father was an accomplished amateur painter, whose work was influenced by the European old masters, and his brother Nizar and sister Neziha were also accomplished painters, becoming well-known in their own right. Jewad was sent to Europe on government scholarships to further his art education, first to Paris (1938-39) and then to Rome (1939-40). The effects of World War II resulted in Jewad cutting short his studies and returning to Baghdad, where he began part-time work at the Directorate of Antiquities, where he developed an appreciation and understanding of ancient art of his country, and he also taught at the Institute of Fine Arts and founded the sculpture department. In 1946, he was sent to the Slade School of Art, London. At the Slade, Jewad met his future wife and fellow art student, Lorna. Jewad returned to Baghdad in 1949 to become Head of the Department of Sculpture at the Institute of Fine Arts, where he taught his students to draw on the heritage of their country to create a distinctive Iraqi style and artistic identity, which would become the ethos of an influential art movement just a few years later. In 1950 Lorna joined Jewad in Baghdad, where they were married. In 1951, Jewad Selim formed The Baghdad Modern Art Group.. Modern Iraqi art began with the first exhibition of the Baghdad group where they announced the birth of a new school of art that would 'serve local and international culture'. 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 Tehrir 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. Jewad's early death in 1961 was a shock to the artistic community of Iraq, but his spirit remained and was reignited by a new wave of young artists returning from their studies abroad, who picked up his mantle of extending Iraqi art into the rest of the Arab world and internationally. Jewad had paved the way ahead. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com