Extract of Article – The Daily Star Wednesday, July 3, 1968, No. 5084, Vol 17.

One of Beirut’s best painters “Inner fever” is Baccache’s secret”

At Gallery Baccache, on the corner up from Lord’s Hotel and the Bain Militaire, is the studio of Alfred Baccache, one of Beirut’s most talented artists and sculptors. He is a man who avoids the fanfare of gallery exhibitions, and the hubbub that has swirled around the comings and goings of the artistic community in recent seasons. He prefers to work with intensity in quiet solitude where he feels he can create with artistic integrity.
A Lebanese, born in Syria in 1921, he started sketching and drawing as a child. He worked on his own, experimenting in various media and with different techniques. Though he never had any formal education in the arts, he drew inspiration from travel in France and Europe, and from the artists that he met.

… Hung about were some of Baccache’s portraits in oils. The styles reflected his change of style over the years. Most of these paintings, however, are in private collections or museums. He has entered, has been favorable notices, and has received prizes in many competitions and exhibits throughout, Europe and America. While looking through his scrapbook, he showed pictures of portraits, busts, and abstract sculpture, as well as a photo of a glass vase which he designed for a competition sponsored by Steuben. This vase can still be ordered from Steuben.
Showing the examples of sculpture that he still has in his studio, Baccache explained with considerable care the technique in which he works. Rather than working from the solid form as many modern artists do, he uses the ancient method of building the form as a shell. He creates his volumes in adding to the shell rather than hollowing out the completed volume.

… The quiet retiring man who will not blow his own horn, Alfred Baccache should be given some serious consideration by anyone who is interested in legitimate artistic expression. He is a master in many areas, and the fact that he has been producing over many years and has been very favorably recognized in Europe and America as well as the Middle East is no small measure of his success. His present work in portraiture represents the latest evolution of his career, and in the interviewer’s opinion, Beirut will be hearing a great deal about him in the near future.