jan 21, 1961 - Acquintance Jewad Selim dies.

Description:

I met him, and the other members of the Baghdad Modern Art Group, through Jack Percival. He was friendly with them, and was one of the few in Baghdad who could take coloured slides of their work. Selim invited me to join the Group as an artist, and I attended a few meetings. I participated in an exhibition with them; I remember the photo, The Tear. It was of a child crying in a nursery. They also asked me regularly to take photos of their work.

I saw Selim two days before he died, at Tahrir Square in 1961, when he was supervising the installation of his sculptures on the Monument to Freedom that he’d been commissioned to do. He was in a hurry because he was worried about government interference, in changing his design. The casting was done in Italy and it couldn’t be speeded up. The wall was designed like a large protest banner to which the sculptures were added. It was like a film with scenes of Iraq’s history, with the middle statue (the installation of which Selim supervised), linking the recent revolution with the rest. He died two days later. I was shocked. I wanted to document his funeral, both as a friend and as a tribute to an important Iraqi artist.

(He dies 23 januari 1961)