 Huguette
El Khoury Caland
Huguette El Khoury Caland was born in Beirut in 1931. She began
the first prototypes of her embroidered and hand-painted gowns in
1964. She studied art at the American University of Beirut from
1964 to 1968 but later moved to Paris in 1970. She lived and worked
in New York for one year (1981-2). She then returned to Paris in
1983 where she worked under the tutorship of Rumanian sculptor George
Apostu on a series of stone, wood and terra cotta sculptures. Caland
moved from Paris to Los Angeles in 1988, where she presently lives
and works.
Since 1993,
she has been exhibited at the Janine Rubeiz Gallery in Beirut where
her work is permanently on display. Her artwork has also been shown
at the Delta Gallery in Rome, at Tokyo’s Museum of Modern Art, the
Faris Gallery in Paris, the Monaco Art Center in Monte Carlo, Joan
Miro Foundation in Barcelona and the International Biennale of Venice
in Italy. She also participated in Europ’Art (Geneva), Start’Art
(Strasbourg) and the "Brushes for Feathers" exhibition
organized by Janine Rubeiz Gallery for the benefit of the Lebanese
Foundation of the National Library in 2005. Her work was sold during
the Auction Sale organized by Christie’s in 2006 and 2007 in Dubai
and during the Auction Sale organized by Sotheby's in 2007 in London.
Caland has pierced
the galleries and institutions across the United States as early
as 1970 with the Smithonian Institution in Washington DC. Recently,
the Pacific Design Center and the Articultural Art Center in Los
Angeles displayed her work. Caland’s work hang in the collections
of the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Fonds National d’Art
Contemporain in Paris. Her work is present notably in the Monaco
and Beirut collections of the prominent collector Pierre Naim as
well as in numerous private collections in Lebanon, France, United
Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
Caland’s prolific
talents also include designing a line of clothing for the famous
designer Pierre Cardin, illustrations of books, sculptures and writing
of screenplays.
In 2007, Caland’s
joined the “Art-Paris Modern Art Fair” in Abu-Dhabi and recently
in 2009 the "Art-Dubai" in Dubaï and the "Abu
Dhabi Art 2009" in the United Arab Emirates with Janine Rubeiz
gallery. She will be also featuring in “Art-Dubai” in the United
Arab Emirates in March 2010.
Her work was sold during the Auction Sale organized by Christie’s
in 2006 in Dubai and is permanently displayed at Janine Rubeiz Gallery.
Article:
Aldis Browne (President - Fine Arts, Inc., Venice Ca)
It’s a good
bet that when we look back at any country’s history, the arts have
gone a long way toward defining its national identity. Most politicians
and statesmen are soon forgotten, wars blur into memory and inventions
long outlive even the most renowned inventors. When we consider
Italy aren’t Dante Alighieri, Antonio Vivaldi and Leonardo da Vinci
longest remembered? Who better typifies Scandinavia than Edvard
Munch, Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Grieg? England reveres Shakespeare
the Netherlands – van Gogh; France – The impressionists. Influences
of art and culture are indispensable elements of historical perspective.
Though it grew from an ancient culture, Lebanon is a relatively
new nation; one founded only after World War I when the Ottoman
Empire was formally split by the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. And perhaps
no artist today better reflects Beirut’s proud international heritage
than Huguette Caland. Caland was born the daughter of Lebanon’s
first president. Following her education in Beirut, Caland lived
for two decades in Paris, and since 1986, has called America her
home.
Caland has long enjoyed a distinguished reputation. Since 2007 alone,
her work has been exhibited in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Beirut, New York
Los Angeles and a major auction in London and Dubai. Her art is
as uniquely individual as her themes are universal. The boldly abstracted
forms that underlie her canvases open dialogues with intricacy reminiscent
of lace – like Arabesque architecture. Her art is often suggestive
of the magical, frequently musical, spirit of Paul Klee or the gem
like quality of Gustav Klimt. Her vision challenges rational perspective;
suggestions of a distant landscape or cityscape seen from above
might be seamlessly juxtaposed with the immediacy of a garden. Not
unlike the simultaneity of cubism, her themes are expressed from
multiple perspectives on a single canvas. Though imposing scale
can contradict intimacy, Caland unerringly creates harmony and lyricism
from such diversity.
Only as Lebanon creates and recreates its own legacy will history
define whatever enduring contributions to the arts it might make.
Will Huguette Caland ultimately take a place as a progenitor of
Lebanon’s artistic heritage? Only the test of time will answer that
question…
But I wouldn’t bet against it.
Article:
Huguette Caland By Helen Khal – The Woman
Artist in Lebanon - 1987
Adagio 62 x 125 cm
Composition 70 x 67 cm
Fleure Bleue 39 x 28 cm, 2009
Helen 89 x 38 cm, 2009
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