Who Was Naziha Salim? Google Doodle Pay Tributes To Iraqi Painter

Search engine Google paid tribute to famous Iraqi painter Naziha Salim with a Doodle artwork on Saturday, as a celebration of her longstanding contributions to the art world. Salim mostly painted colourful pictures of rural women depicting their life and that of peasants. She was also a professor and one of the most influential artists in Iraq.

The reason why Google has taken to celebrating her today is that on this day in 2020, she was showcased by the Barjeel Art Foundation in their collection of female artists. Her artwork still hangs at the Sharjah Art Museum and the Modern Art Iraqi Archive.

According to Google, "There you can see the magic she created from dripping brushes and brimmed canvases. Today's Doodle artwork is an ode to Salim's painting style and a celebration of her long standing contributions to the art world."

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Who Was Naziha Salim?

Naziha Salim was born into a family of Iraqi artists in Turkey. Her father was a painter and her mother was a skilled embroidery artist. Reportedly, she had three brothers and all of them worked in arts. One of her brothers Jawad is considered an influential sculptor in the country. It is said that from a young age, Salim used to enjoy making her own art.

Considering her love for painting, she enrolled at the Baghdad Fine Arts Institute. There she studied painting and graduated with distinction. With her hard work and passion for art, she became the first woman to be awarded a scholarship to the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She continued her education there.

There, Salim also specialised in fresco and mural painting. Afterwards, she spent several years abroad, eventually returning to Baghdad and working at the Fine Arts Institute, where she taught till she retired. Not only was she active in the art community in the country, but she was also the founding member of Al-Ruwwad, which is a community of artists who had studied abroad and incorporated European art techniques along with the Iraqi aesthetics.

Salim also authored Iraq: Contemporary Art, which became an important resource for the development of the modern art movement in Iraq.

Feature Image Credit: Google