Born in 1925 in Ankara, Nizar Selim was the brother of the renowned Iraqi artist, Jewad Selim. He studied at the Institute of Fine Arts, Baghdad, in 1939 for three years. Then, Selim earned a degree from the College of Law in Bagdad in 1951 and started working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1971, he headed the department of translation then, a year later, the Directorate-General of Arts at the Ministry of Information and Culture. In 1976, Selim became an art consultant for the same ministry. Part of the modern art movements which developed in Bagdad, he was a versatile artist who painted and produced caricatures, ceramics, and sculptures. The artist depicted nature, portraits, or genre scenes, and also Baghdad, its daily life, customs, and traditions of its inhabitants' were incontestably his primary source of inspiration.

Selim's style moved from an impressionist style to a style more synchronized with the trend of his time. Following the artistic program of the Baghdad Group for Modern Art, he reduced the elements of the compositions to abstract forms, used earthy flat colors, and simple lines. Selim was also a literary man: he published several books, among them short stories, plays, and poetry, also notably Al Fen-al-Iraqi al-Mu'asir, (Contemporary Iraqi Art), in 1979, which traces the history of plastic arts in Iraq. Nizar Selim passed away in 1982 of a heart attack.

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