Born in 1928 in Sheffield, England, Lorna Selim was granted a scholarship to study at the Slade School of Art in London and graduated from painting and design in 1948 and obtained an art teacher's diploma from the Institute of Education, London University, and a year later. Between 1949 to 1950, she was a teacher of art at the Tapton House Grammar school before relocating to Baghdad with the Iraqi artist Jewad Selim, whom she met in London and married in 1950. In the 1950s, Iraq was a very active cultural and artistic place in the Middle-East and Lorna Selim took part of this development, notably exhibiting alongside the members of the Baghdad Group for Modern Art. She also taught painting and drawing at the Girls' College and the department of sculpture of Baghdad University in 1961 when her husband passed away. Through her works, the painter shows her passion for Iraqi architecture from the 1950s and Iraqi people. She represents them with abstract forms of simple lines giving hieratic postures to the figures in their daily lives. And with an earthy color palette, she celebrates the ancient culture from Mesopotamia using symbols from the Iraqi environment such as palm trees or crescent. Lorna Selim still lives and works in Abergavenny, Wales.

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