Shafic
Abboud
Retrospective of Works, Beirut Exhibition Center,
8 May - 8 July 2012 - In
French
Shafic
Abboud, by Nadine Begdache
Shafic Abboud was part of my mother’s, Janine Rubeiz,
intimate circle of friends. He was very present
in my life despite living in exile when I was still
very young. Every time we travelled to Paris, we
would always meet up for lunch in his favourite
‘bistrot’, the Chalet du Parc.
When Janine Rubeiz passed away, I went to him for
advice and support regarding the creation of the
Galerie Janine Rubeiz. In 1993, he surprised me
by painting twelve temperas, each referred to a
story or personal memory with her. One evoked Dar
el-Fan, another recalled an opaline belonging to
her that Abboud had broken. This ensemble was known
as ‘Pour Janine’ and was the launch of the gallery,
paying homage to my mother with other of her friends,
Yvette Achkar, Amine El-Bacha, Jamil Molaeb, Aref
Rayess.
Later, Abboud still needed to be reconciled with
Beirut. He used to repeat again and again, `For
me, Beirut, the exhibitions, all of this is over
!’ Finally, in December 1994, he managed to face
his fears and set off to come back after being absent
for 17 years.
His next trip was like a rebirth. From North to
South, from the coast to Bekaa, he travelled across
the country, on board the popular and traditional
‘bosta’. ‘Can you believe it ? 3000 LL to go around
Lebanon !’ he used to say with a child’s excitement.
At that time, he produced his last Lebanese paintings
which were imbued with the light and atmosphere
of all the places which left an impression on him:
Les Saints Balèches, Le Paradise (Jbeil),
Une certaine lumière, La fabrication du tapis,
… The May 1999 exhibition proved to be a revelation
of joy, colours and happiness.
Shafic was happy to reunite with his homeland country
and his friends, yet he was also happy with his
life in Paris and in the countryside, in that second
country which had adopted him. Unfortunately, during
the time we were preparing his third exhibition,
his health suddenly deteriorated and he left us
too quickly. Eight years later, this retrospective
is a must in order to pay tribute to this great
painter and friend.
Shafic
Abboud, by Saleh Barakat
I was fortunate to meet Shafic Abboud, and although
very briefly it was enough to get to know him and
to appreciate his makings of a great man. He left
his imprint, like that of a mentor, through his
advice and recommendations which we understand more
and more each day. My collaboration on this exhibition
is an act of respect to Shafic Abboud and a tribute
to the ‘master’. It was about time that Shafic Abboud
received the tribute he deserves in his own country
and that the Lebanese audience, especially the new
generation, get to know his oeuvre, as the work
of an artist who left such a mark in the history
of Lebanese painting should be known.
After several years of media-driven publicity for
contemporary art, people have recently become aware
of the importance of archiving, preserving, re-interpreting
and promoting the modern era of Lebanese art (1880-1980).
The Shafic Abboud exhibition at the BEC is one of
a series of retrospectives which put the spotlight
on artists who have settled in Lebanon and in the
Arab world, but whose works are unfortunately not
well known to the public and to international curators,
considering the absence of museums and national
galleries. These retrospectives are crucial in making
the local, regional and international audience more
familiar with the quality and diversity of the modern
Lebanese production, with the hope of ultimately
making it part of the History of Art. In order to
understand Shafic Abboud, you need to see him and
to immerse yourselves in his world of light and
softness.
This exhibition is the celebration of a great artist’s
exemplary career and his fruitful heritage, tracing
back his evolution over six uninterrupted decades
of work and of intellectual involvement. The works
on display have been carefully selected and show
Shafic Abboud’s continuity and transitions, since
the academic years until his death, through the
versatility of their subjects, styles, medium and
pictorial vocabulary. His language contributed to
founding an Arab modernity, leaving indelible marks
for the artistic scene and for generations of artists.
Scenography
of the exhibition, by Karim Bekdache
To show Shafic Abboud’s work required a specific
concept for the scenography. It wasn’t just a case
of juxtaposing each work in an intelligent way.
Reading Shafic Abboud’s work must be done with a
limited distance to stand back. The paintings must
not be aligned one after the other as they need
to be looked at separately, or in groups of 2 or
3 maximum.
I met Shafic Abboud in his studio back in 1987.
We had lunch together in his flat, situated on the
floor above. After drinking his coffee, he quickly
got back to work, in this long and narrow studio
which was surprisingly small and where he produced
some very large paintings, without being able to
stand back.
In my eyes, his paintings were landscapes seen from
a plane, just like satellite images which have been
drawn with the nose stuck onto the canvas. The exhibition
respects this required distance, whilst at the same
time giving the viewer freedom to wander around
although always showing a preference for a certain
aspect: 3 meters from the canvas, without looking
at everything together in order to appreciate better
this unique ensemble of works.
Prelude by Claude Lemand
I have a great admiration for Shafic Abboud’s work
and a loyal affection for him as a person. I am
happy and proud to have published his first monograph,
prepared and organized his first retrospective in
Paris with the help of the Succession Shafic Abboud
and that of a small number of friends and collectors.
I also initiated his retrospective in Beirut, directed
by Nadine Begdache and Saleh Barakat, which will
offers an opportunity to show visitors and all the
generations of Lebanese people the masterpieces
of his paintings in Lebanese collections, but also
to share other aspects of the artist’s multi-faceted
creativity through the works lent by his daughter
Christine: his books and his graphic works, his
ceramics and terracotta, his carpets and tapestries,
his projects for sculptures, his series of temperas,
…
The Beirut retrospective will enable us to pay tribute
to the perceptiveness, loyalty and often the friendship
of the main Lebanese friends and collectors, who
stood by Shafic Abboud’s side throughout his adventure
with art and who bought his works in Beirut or Paris.
Referred to as the ‘Swimmers of a single love’ to
echo the title of one of Georges Schehade’s poems,
these collectors include Henri Eddé, who
collected his work as early as 1950; his childhood
friend Janine Rubeiz; his friends Samir and Odile
Andraos; Farid Andraos, his close friend from his
youth and one of his most important faithful collectors;
Ghassan Tueni, the writer, friend and collector,
and Abboud’s first publisher; the multi-talented
friend Sami Karkabi; Antoine and Janine Maamari,
loyal and generous collectors based in Beirut and
Paris; Gerard Khoury, with whom he produced those
magnificent ceramic plates; Viviane and Robert Debbas,
who succeeded in patiently and passionately gathering
a vast collection highly representative of Abboud’s
painting; Joseph Gholam, with whom he shared a true
friendship and complete trust; Cesar Nammour, the
Hatems, Selouanes, Khalidys, Boctis, El-Khalils,
Mikatis, Baroudis, Saradars, Abou Adals, … without
forgetting all the people who contributed to Abboud’s
success by purchasing his paintings, be it only
one, as well as the new generation of dynamic investors,
who are fascinated by the formation of important
private collections, the collectors who preferred
to preserve their anonymity and those who surprise
us with their hidden treasures during an exhibition
or a conversation ! Bank Audi’s commitment and that
of its president, an important patron of arts and
culture in Lebanon, as well as the Beirut Exhibition
Center, the most recent project realized by Solidere,
are also to be acknowledged for their support.
The Beirut retrospective will also be a homage to
the main Lebanese galleries who exhibited and promoted
works by Shafic Abboud: Janine Rubeiz had organized
a solo show as early as 1964, before the opening
of her well-known gallery Dar el-Fan, Brigitte Schehade
and her Centre d’Art, Odile Mazloum, Manoug and
his studio, the trio from Contact gallery Waddah
Fares, Cesar Nammour and Mireille, later followed
by galleries of the new generation, such as Nadine
Begdache who continued Janine’s exhibitions, Amal
Traboulsi, Saleh Barakat, …
Art critics also have an equally important role
in recognizing and spreading Abboud’s oeuvre, in
France and in Europe, in Lebanon and in the Arab
world. Lebanese writers and critics are once again
to be thanked, as they accompanied Shafic Abboud
throughout his exhibitions in Beirut and in Paris,
such as Salah Stétié, Nazih Khater,
Joseph Tarrab, Adonis, Issa Makhlouf, Charbel Dagher,
Roula Zein, Pierre Abi Saab, … and since 2011, Carole
Dagher in French, Inaam Kachachi in Arabic and many
others.
Please forgive me in advance if some of the collectors,
friends, writers or Lebanese galleries have not
been mentioned. It is my fault for forgetting them
as I am only the last of his gallerists, publishers
and passionate collectors. It is Shafic Abboud’s
work that still ties me to Lebanon, a country which
tore apart my youth, as that of tens of thousands
other Lebanese. Yet we always remain attached to
our country, idealized in Shafic’s own way: despite
the ravaging and ongoing war in Lebanon in 1982,
he entitled the project of an exhibition in Beirut
of around thirty temperas: ‘Childhood Memories.
Images of a Lebanon’.
I truly hope that these incentives will not provoke
any jealousy or hard feelings, but rather emulation
and solidarity amongst Lebanese collectors, amateurs
and patrons of art from Lebanon and from the Diaspora.
I would really like to see all the Lebanese gather
around their ancient and contemporary heritage and
that they leave behind them their ancestral rivalries
of tribes and clans, ready to give themselves away
to the most offering foreign powers to end up killing
each other on homeland’s soil.
All texts translated from French by Valérie
Hess.
Publications
available in Beirut and in Paris:
1. Shafic Abboud. Monograph, Paris, 2006. Texts
in French.
2. Shafic Abboud. Monograph, Paris, 2006. Textd
in English.
3. Shafic Abboud. Catalogue of the Paris Retrospective,
Paris, 2011.
4. Shafic Abboud. Catalogue of 8 pages with texts
in English, Paris, 2011.
Shafic
Abboud, by Claude Lemand
Shafic Abboud is the foremost Lebanese and Arab
painter of the second half of the 20th century.
His paintings are a manifesto for freedom, colour,
light and joy, as well as being a permanent bridge
between the art scenes of France and Lebanon and
that of Lebanon and the Middle East. Both Lebanese
and Parisian, Shafic Abboud was very attached to
Lebanon, to its landscapes, its light and his own
childhood memories. He was from a Lebanese Arab
Modern culture. The stories of his grandmother,
who was the village’s story-teller, left an indelible
mark on him, at a very early age. He was immersed
in the colourful popular culture of the villages
of Mount Lebanon and was familiar with the paintings
of the travelling story-tellers. The artist’s eye
was also strongly influenced by Byzantine icons
and traditions from his church. The writings, debates,
ideals, hopes and battles characterising the Arab
Nahda, a modernist and anti-clerical Renaissance
which was initially driven by 19th century Lebanese
writers and thinkers, were to later have a significant
impact on Abboud’s intellectual education.
Born in 1926 in Lebanon, Shafic Abboud arrived in
1947 in Paris. He blended in perfectly with the
city’s artistic life, just as many other artists
who had come from all over the world after the Second
World War (from North and South America, Europe,
Asia and North Africa). This was the second major
movement of migration to Paris. France’s capital
was still at the time the City of lights and the
favourite destination of upcoming artists seeking
for modernity, embodied by Claude Monet’s last painting
period and by all the Parisian masters of the 20th
century. Shafic Abboud had a particular preference
for works by Pierre Bonnard, Roger Bissière
and Nicolas de Staël. His first personal exhibition
as figurative painter took place in Beirut in 1950,
whilst his first solo exhibition as abstract painter
was held in Paris in 1955. Abboud’s painting gradually
moved from the poetic Lebanese figuration towards
the lyrical Parisian abstraction, followed by a
move from abstraction towards a very subtle and
sublime personal “abboudian transfiguration”, which
was simultaneously traditional and modern, pagan
and sacred.
Like all creators, Shafic Abboud was complex and
multiple. He knew how to appreciate the simple joys
in life, such as eating well, drinking, loving,
being affected by the light in a landscape, a fabric,
a face or a woman’s body. He both claimed and wrote,
as opposed to other artists who mention the torments
of creation, that his happiness was fulfilled in
painting and that it put him into a trance, giving
him a sensual pleasure similar to that of love.
I once told him that his paintings which hung in
my gallery brought me a feeling of triumphant euphoria
and hence, I had started to hum Lebanese and Arab
songs from my childhood. Abboud had replied saying
that he also used to sing in Arabic in his studio.
It seems that it was almost natural for him that
a sense of joy emanated from his paintings for both
him and his admirers.
His work is often an invitation to the joy of life,
a pagan hedonism yet limited by our frail human
condition. However, this does not prevent a tragic
element from being present in some of his paintings.
These occasionally evoke, in an obvious or subtle
way, difficult situations from stages of his life
or that of his friends’, the tragic events happening
in Lebanon, in the Arab world and in various parts
of the World. Although Abboud never overtly put
forward his engagements, his oeuvre and his interviews
with the Arab press reveal his opinion as well as
his political and social concerns.
Shafic Abboud is not the painter of one image, which
is then reproduced in stereotypes with multiple
variations. He is on a permanent quest. He first
experiments, he then gets excited by his discoveries
and finally, he doubts and reassesses. However,
he is also faithful to different aspects of a series
of continuous themes such as seasons, windows, studios,
rooms, nights, destroyed cafés, the temperas
of the childhood world, the temperas of ancient
Arab poets, Simone’s dresses, …
When I described his mature work as being ‘transfigurative’
earlier on, it seems to me that this word reflects
best Abboud’s search for a synthesis between his
fairy-tale like childhood world and his technical
mastering of abstract Parisian painting. He sought
to transcend the latter, stimulated by both Bonnard
and de Staël, by giving it a soul of its own
and a rich and luminous texture. Through his paintings,
Abboud aimed to share his own view on both his inside
and outside worlds. He transfigured images filtered
from his memory into painting, such as his series
of Destroyed Cafés of 1990. These large colourful
compositions beam the tragic reality of the war
in Lebanon devastating the cafés by the sea
in Beirut, which Abboud loved going to on his own
or with his friends, when he used to visit every
winter until 1975. In a similar way, he also transfigured
his memory of his friend Simone after her death,
whose dresses fascinated Abboud with their various
shimmering fabrics. Being neither a devout follower
nor believer of any religion, Abboud was nonetheless
very much influenced by the glory of the Byzantine
Greco-Arab liturgy. Symbolically, Art triumphs over
death.
Please allow me to remind you the importance of
this artist. Not only the French but also the Lebanese
and Arab critics acknowledged the quality of Abboud’s
painting at a very early stage in his life. In 1953,
he was the first Arab painter to produce painters’
books in Paris, using etchings for Le Bouna and
silkscreen prints for La Souris. Furthermore, he
was the first and only artist from the Arab World
to participate to the first Biennale of Paris in
1959. In Lebanon, during two decades 1950-1970,
he played a major role for Beirut’s cultural and
artistic life. Beirut was the beam of all the Near-Eastern
countries, and had experienced many fruitful hours
of freedom, creativity, prosperity and a particular
way of life, which contributed to its international
reputation. Up to 1975, Abboud was used to spending
the three winter months in Lebanon. He taught at
the Lebanese University and organised personal exhibitions
in one of the best galleries of the capital. Abboud’s
works were exhibited alongside the biggest names
of the Parisian art scene up to 1968, and he participated
to the FIAC in Paris, from 1983 onwards. In 1994,
after 15 years of war, the show of his oeuvre in
Beirut was a huge media and commercial success.
When Abboud passed away in April 2004, a moving
farewell ceremony was organised at the Parc Montsouris
in Paris’ 14th district, very close to where the
artist had his small studio. Abboud then received
a triumphant welcome, when his body was transferred
to Beirut and to Mount Lebanon, where he was buried,
as per his wish.
Translated from French by Valérie
Hess.
Itinerary by Christine Abboud
1926-1944
Shafic Abboud was born on the 22nd November 1926
in a Greek Orthodox village called Mhaidsé,
in the Lebanese mountains, approximately 20 km.
north-east of Beirut. His family’s origins were
profoundly rural, yet his father, Boutros, had a
successful business in Beirut and his mother, Emilie,
was able to pursue her studies, coming from a middle
class background. Shafic was the eldest of his siblings
and had a brother, Sami, and a sister, Sonia.
His childhood remained an enchanted and delightful
period of his life. The memories of a grandmother
who was the village’s story-teller, of a grandfather
who was a peasant but also a poet-illustrator, of
the light, the huts in the trees, the Melkite iconography,
were all going to endlessly fuel the artist’s imagination
throughout his life. He later referred to this period
as the “the bird’s years”.
During his adolescence, Shafic Abboud was a student
of the Christian Brothers in Beirut, being both
hard-working and undisciplined. Having started to
paint at an early age, his encounter with the Post-Impressionist
Lebanese painter César Gemayel when he was
15 years old was crucial for his career as an artist.
In 1944, his father registered him at the French
School of Engineers in Beirut, where he moped around
for two years, recalling that: ‘… painting was consuming
me more and more and everything else I was doing
became indifferent to me. There is always a bit
of madness in what we undertake and most certainly
a cleft somewhere…’ (Revue du Liban, 4th March 1972).
Abboud dropped out of the course and registered
at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts, founded by
César Gemayel. The atmosphere was exciting,
yet the teaching methods were too academic for him.
He therefore decided to leave Lebanon.
1947-1950
Shafic Abboud arrived in Paris in October 1947,
at the age of twenty. His only belongings which
temporarily kept him going, were two reference letters
from the poet Georges Shéhadé, destined
to the art critics Georges Besson and Jacques Lassaigne,
as well as an insignificant allowance from his father,
who did not at all support his son’s projects.
He lived in a furnished apartment Rue Saint-André-des-Arts.
He was passionate, studying at the School of Fine
Arts at the same time as attending the Academy of
La Grande Chaumière and visiting various
artists’ studios, such as that of André Lhote,
Jean Metzinger, Othon Friesz and Fernand Léger,
where he followed the corrections. He discovered
and discussed endless new approaches to painting,
and became friends with young foreign painters such
as Moser, Lindström, Raza, Istrati, Pougny,
…
Abboud returned to Lebanon in the autumn of 1949,
but it was soon obvious to him that he needed to
quickly leave again. His entire life would be accentuated
by regular back and forths to Lebanon, a duality
sometimes serene and other times harsh. He worked
on his paintings and inaugurated his first solo
exhibition in Beirut in December 1950, with the
help of the French painter Georges Cyr. His paintings
were at that time still figurative.
1951-1954
By March 1951, Abboud had gathered enough money
to pay his trip and to be able to live some time
in Paris. He settled in a small studio next to the
Montsouris park, immersed in the intellectual and
artistic life, and resumed studying with Lhote,
Metzinger, Friesz and Léger. He registered
again at the School of Fine Arts and this time attended
classes of graphic techniques with Heuze, the lithographer
Jaudon and Goerg. It was in the latter’s studio
that Abboud would produce the engravings for Le
Bouna, the first painter’s book made by an Arab
artist.
After three years of financial insecurity (he was
a bartender at the Abbaye de Royaumont, he participated
to painting projects with the help of the painter
Selim Turan, …), he signed a contract with the group
of collectors Baralipton.
Abboud established himself as a painter, shifting
decisively towards abstract art. He took part in
all the discussions organized by Estienne and Degand,
travelled a lot and went to many exhibitions and
museums day after day.
The year 1954 was a turning point in the artist’s
life, as he met the art critic Roger van Gindertael.
The latter was the co-founder of the Journal Cimaise
as well as being one of the first to write essays
on Nicolas de Staël and Hans Hartung, and who
defended many artists’ views, such as Nallard, Gauthier,
Bissière, Lanskoy, Bryen. This was the beginning
of a key relationship of both friendship and business.
1955-1958
With Gindertael’s support, Shafic Abboud had his
first Parisian exhibition at the Galerie de Beaune
in February 1955. He was invited to the Salon des
Réalités Nouvelles, to which he participated
throughout his life and, a few years later, he became
a member of its committee.
His father’s death in March 1957 cast a dark shadow
over this period, yet the group exhibitions followed
one another in Paris, at the Iris Clert and Suzanne
de Coninck galleries, as well as abroad at the biennials
of Lissone, Düsseldorf and Essen.
1959-1963
Abboud’s place as a painter was asserted by four
important events which all took place in 1959. First,
he had two solo exhibitions, which were held both
in Paris at the La Roue Gallery, presented by Guy
Resse, and in Beirut at the Domus Gallery.
Then he was invited to take part to the First Biennial
of Paris in the French section entitled “the young
critics’ choices”, amongst whom figured Boudaille,
Conil-Lacoste, Descargues, Ragon, Restany, Weelen
and Taillandier.
Finally, the year 1959 culminated with the signature
of an exclusivity contract with the Raymonde Cazenave
Gallery. This four-year collaboration proved to
be highly successful yet at the same time very difficult,
due to the numerous restrictions imposed by the
agreement’s clauses; it would change Abboud’s relationship
with art dealers forever. Several solo exhibitions
were organized and during his group shows, Abboud’s
paintings were presented side by side with works
by Bryen, Hartung, Dumitresco, Lanskoy, Villon,
Estève, …
A few years earlier, one of his closest friends,
the composer André Boucourechliev, introduced
Abboud to Nicole de Maupéou, who was a young
sociologist working with Alain Touraine. Shafic
and Nicole married in 1961 and they brought up together
Dominique, Nicole’s daughter born from her previous
marriage, and Christine, who was born in 1962.
The next few years, Abboud went travelling again
this time to Germany, feeling the need to improve
his training as a lithographer there. He became
more and more interested in print techniques and
hence purchased his own press machine in order to
produce his own impressions. He explored engraving
on copper, on zinc, with linocuts, drawing on stone,
… He worked with Mourlot and in some of the most
prestigious studios, travelling frequently to Holland
and Belgium, where he became an artist in residence
in art centers.
This bond with producing ‘multiples’ is closely
related with the artist’s love for books. Abboud
illustrated the poems of Adonis and the picaresque
stories reminiscent of the oriental tradition Maqâmât
Al-Harîri. He produced himself his books Le
Bouna, La Souris, Hamacs, Le Livre de la Difficulté
et du Bonheur, and always worked on other projects
at the same time.
1964-1968
Although Abboud was relieved by the termination
of his contract with the Cazenave Gallery , he once
again found himself facing financial problems. In
1965, he returned to La Roue Gallery and then to
Beirut at the Contemporary Art Centre, to present
solo exhibitions in both. The style of his paintings
changed, revealing a new dialogue with figuration.
He participated to many exhibitions in Germany,
Algeria, Denmark and Holland, alongside Debré,
Karskaya, Messagier, Miotte, Moser, Nallard and
Rebeyrolle, with whom he tried to create an artists’
group. He also took part in the Salons Schèmes
and Comparaisons.
The woman artist Karskaya, who was to become one
of Abboud’s close friends, collaborated with him
on a series of portraits entitled Connus-inconnus
in 1967. During the 1968 May incidents, they worked
together on pieces with four hands, known as Cousus-mains,
yet this collaboration would never occur again with
any other artist.
The Museum of Fine Arts in Paris and the State (CNAC)
acquired two paintings by Abboud.
1969-1975
From 1969 until the beginning of Lebanon’s civil
war in 1975, Abboud taught at the National School
of Fine Arts in Beirut, every year during one term.
Meanwhile in France, he was a professor until 1992.
He bought a small studio in the same area of the
Montsouris park. He then travelled to Belgium and
Holland, where he met Michèle Rodière,
his future partner.
Nonetheless, a heavy psychic suffering also bore
upon those years. His doubts on whether he could
pursue his career as a painter relentlessly tormented
him and his personal life was tearing him apart,
inducing him to make a suicide attempt in October
1973.
However, it did not stop him from working and many
exhibitions took place at that time, not only in
Lebanon, such as at the Janine Rubeiz Gallery, the
Manoug Gallery and the Art Centre directed by Brigitte
Schéhadé, but also in France and Holland,
at the Protée Gallery in Toulouse and the
de Boer Gallery in Amsterdam.
1976-1980
Abboud initiated a series of exhibitions with Brigitte
Schéhadé who soon opened a gallery
in Paris. He also worked with the Principe Gallery
and remained loyal to Protée and de Boer.
The Jeanne Bucher and Ariel Galleries hosted a show
entitled “65 painters witnessing their friendship
for Roger van Gindertael”, an ambitious project
with which Abboud was very much involved.
What is striking during these years are his pressing
and increasing needs to invest or re-invest in new
supports for his creations. He spent a long time
dedicating himself to tapestry, then turned to sculpture
and mixed terracotta, strings and ropes, and he
finally went back to producing lithographs to illustrate
and publish several books. In 1979-1980, Abboud
decorated a long series of blue ceramic dishes,
which had been made by Gérard and Marie Khoury.
For several months, he got down to realizing a wall
of 30 square meters for a sports centre in Paris,
made out of copper and terracotta.
1981-1990
1981 was the year Shafic Abboud returned to Lebanon,
after a five-year gap due to the war. The following
year was a year of mourning, as his mother passed
away in February 1982 and a few months later, Roger
van Gindertael, his “spiritual” father, also died.
For some time, it seemed that Abboud’s work was
turning back to his childhood, and it was only later
that he resumed his study of classical Arabic.
In 1983, the journal Cimaise not only dedicated
its front cover to Abboud but it also published
an illustrated article, including a text by Gilles
Plazy. The Faris Gallery exhibited his works at
the FIAC in 1983, 1984 and 1988, as well as also
organizing for him two solo exhibitions. Abboud’s
paintings were also present at the FIAC on the Protée
Gallery’s stand in 1983 and 1986.
At that time, Abboud worked a lot with large-sized
canvases, mainly focusing on two critical series,
the Chambres (Rooms) and the Nuits (Nights). The
Faris Gallery offered Abboud to host a retrospective
exhibition of his oeuvre from 1948 to 1998.
He also participated to various exhibitions at the
Institut du Monde Arabe, in London as well as in
Denmark, continuing with his tireless lithographic
work.
1991-2004
During those years, Abboud travelled several times
to Italy, visiting Venice, Rome, Florence, … He
purchased a house in the Nièvre department
in central France.
In 1994, the Janine Rubeiz Gallery organized its
first solo exhibition for Abboud in Beirut, after
a break of sixteen years of war. He stayed several
weeks in Lebanon and travelled to Damascus and Aleppo.
His grand-daughter, Maïa, was born in 1996.
Back in Paris, he exhibited at the Maison de l’UNESCO,
the Institut du Monde Arabe and at the Protée
Gallery. Between 1997 and 2003, the Claude Lemand
Gallery organized several solo exhibitions of Abboud’s
works.
Abboud’s last solo exhibition in Lebanon was held
at the Janine Rubeiz Gallery in 1999.
In 1997, Shafic Abboud had a violent stroke, which
was the first of a series from his fatal heart disease.
Weakened by the strokes day after day, Abboud passed
away on 8th April 2004 in Paris. He was buried in
his home village Mhaidsé.
Translated from French by Valérie Hess.
