Written by RAMI KARIM

Farid Aouad was born in Al Maydan, a village in the Nabatiyeh Governorate of South Lebanon, in 1924. He studied at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts from 1943 to 1947, followed by a year at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. After his studies, Aouad worked in the Paris studios of Othon Friesz and André Lhote from 1948 to 1951. He then returned to Lebanon for seven years before permanently settling in Paris in 1959. 

Working primarily in pastels, Aouad is best known for painting subjects that reflect his solitude. He often depicted scenes of lonely strangers in bars and cafés, figures in the street, train passengers, and fishermen at work. Aouad began experimenting with shape and color at the end of the 1960s. His paintings became marked by a textured haze that obscures the finer details of his subjects while layering emotionality into the frame at large. It was during this period that he developed an interest in man’s mysterious relationship to the cosmos, communicated by frenzied strokes and formless human faces. The streets of old Beirut and Paris are also recurring locales in Aouad’s work, and he painted their characters in the same morose style.

Often weighed down by sickness and poverty, Aouad created pieces that narrated, if obliquely, his enduring personal struggles. This is apparent in his views of lively public spaces, which communicate a sense of alienation. Aouad’s practice is somewhat in conversation with that of artists like Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, and Toulouse Lautrec in depicting scenes of theater productions; like this cohort, Aouad hones in on the audience instead of performers. It is through these voyeurs that Aoaud projects his existential angst. Unlike performers, Aouad’s audience members are not fabricated characters in a perfect narrative, but rather humans like himself, finding their way through the performance and life at large. Furthermore, Aouad’s figures do not exude the joy or sense of togetherness that their contexts might otherwise suggest. They are instead framed by a profound sense of existential torment. Their bodies remain present throughout each work, but their minds roam unseen, their absence deeply felt. The careful balance of vibrant colors and sullen content represents the crux of Aouad’s signature style. More than merely transcribing what he saw, the artist saturated his representations with a palpable sense of dire emotional distress.

Aouad passed away in 1982.

Sources

The Mokbel Art Collection - Collection. Accessed March 01, 2019. http://www.mokbelartcollection.com/faartist.htm.

Matar, William. One Fine Art | Artists - Painters / Daoud Corm. Accessed March 01, 2019. https://www.onefineart.com/art... 

The Mokbel Art Collection - Collection. Accessed March 01, 2019. http://www.mokbelartcollection.com/faartist.htm.

One Hundred Years of Plastic Arts in Lebanon I, 1880-1980. Beirut: Chahine Gallery, 1982.

Abillama, Nour Salamé, Marie Tomb, Amin Maalouf, Joseph Tarrab, Cesar Nammour, Maha Azizé Sultan, Fayçal Sultan, and Gregory Buchakjian. Art from Lebanon: Modern and contemporary artists. Beirut, Lebanon: Wonderful Editions, 2012.

Cent Ans Dart Plastique Au Liban 1880-1980 = One Hundred Years of Plastic Arts in Lebanon 1880-1980. Beirut: Chahine Gallery, 1982.

May Menassa. Farid Aouad, Dernières Oeuvres. Kaslik: Alwane Gallery, 1996.

Official, Tele Liban. "5 De Pic - Farid Awad." YouTube. May 08, 2017. Accessed May 20, 2019.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1_OlX3XLks.