Naziha Salim

Naziha Salim was an Iraqi artist and writer who was known for her paintings of women and family, as well as her history of modern Iraqi art, entitled Iraq: Contemporary Art, published in 1977. She was born in 1927 in Istanbul, to Iraqi parents who were both artists. She studied art in Baghdad and Paris, and exhibited her works in various countries. She also taught at the American University of Beirut. She returned to Baghdad in 1980, and witnessed the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, and the effects of the embargo on the Iraqi people. She began writing a diary in English in 1991, which was later published as Baghdad Diaries in 1998. The book was translated into several languages and received critical acclaim for its vivid and humorous account of the hardships and absurdities of war and exile. She also used the debris of war to create sculptures that she called eco-sculpture. She died in 2008 in Baghdad, from a stroke that left her paralyzed. She is remembered as one of the first Iraqi women who anchored the pillars of Iraqi contemporary art.¹