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SALIBA DOUAIHY SALIBA DOUAIHY

SALIBA DOUAIHY, Lebanon (1915 - 1994)

Bio

Saliba Douaihy was born in Ehden, Lebanon in 1915. At the young age of 14, Douaihy’s father sent him to Beirut to apprentice with Habib Srour. At 17, Douaihy went to Paris, with the help of his...

Written by L'Or Iman Puymartin

Saliba Douaihy was born in Ehden, Lebanon in 1915. At the young age of 14, Douaihy’s father sent him to Beirut to apprentice with Habib Srour. At 17, Douaihy went to Paris, with the help of his local community who raised money for him to study at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts de Paris. He graduated with distinction, winning the top school award and exhibiting at the Salon des Artistes Français. In 1936, the artist returned to Lebanon receiving many commissions for paintings, as well as a professorship with the Collège de la Sagesse.

Towards the latter half of the 40’s, Douaihy began deconstructing the architectural forms of landscapes and rendering the paintings of his surroundings in a cubist-like style. In 1950, Douaihy left for New York City to expand his horizons in the art world. New York was a change from the artist’s familiar environment, prompting him to think at a different scale than he had been while in Lebanon. In New York, he was exposed and surrounded by new artists such as Rothko, Hans Hofmann, and Reinhardt, but he never joined or associated with any art groups or movements. He did, however, take inspiration from the art movements around him, while staying detached in his studio loft in Manhattan. Douaihy began exploring abstract expressionism and simple geometric compositions, where hard-edge painting involved abrupt transitions between zones of color.

Douaihy loved painting on glass as it was a subject very dear to his heart and he found that the colors were more vibrant on glass than on canvas. In 1978, he created sixty-five paintings on glass for the church of The Lady of Lebanon in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

As he broke away from the traditional Lebanese style, he began to delve into the world of simplification. He often used saturated blues, reds, and yellows and created simple shapes to represent mountains, valleys, villages, buildings, and other landscapes particularly the valley of Kadisha.

Douaihy’s landscape paintings are unique as they are not simply panoramas; rather, the perspective he creates seems as though the viewer is looking at a distant village in the valley through a telescope. New York was a pivotal time for Douaihy’s style. He took a course in aesthetics, while reading a book by Immanuel Kant on reducing elements to their most basic forms. At this point, his art became even more abstract than it already was. The paintings that came from the 60’s were a result of the artists search for the ultimate simplification of both form and color. Even while being immersed in the abstract world, Douaihy continued taking commissions for figurative religious works throughout his career. Nevertheless, the artist focused on simplifying his hardedge shapes, brilliantly saturated in color, overlapping and contrasting, caressing and competing with one another. Douaihy remained obsessed with Lebanese landscapes, which, even in his most abstract paintings, are still recognizable in his work.

Saliba Douaihy spent time between London and Paris before passing away in 1994 in New York. 

Sources

Abillama, Nour S., and Marie Tomb. Art from Lebanon. Vol. 1. Beirut, Lebanon: Wonderful editions, 2012.

"Biography." Saliba Douaihy. Accessed October 3, 2017. http://salibadouaihy.com/biography2.php.

Domit, Moussa M. The Art of Saliba Douaihy. Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 1974.

El-Hage, Badr. "Saliba Douaihy." Mathaf Encyclopedia of Modern Art and the Arab World. Accessed October 3, 2017. http://www.encyclopedia.mathaf.org.qa/en/essays/Pages/Saliba-Douaihy,-Autobiography-and-Artistic-Views.aspx.

This is a short biography. The full version , along with research, CV and sources will be posted soon. Stay tuned and visit us often or become a member to be notified of our updates.

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CV

Selected Solo Exhibitions

1993

Retrospective Exhibition, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France

1979

The Art and Science Center, Nashua, New Hampshire, US
Mountain Top Gallery, Windham, New York, US

1978

Retrospective Exhibition, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, US

1976

Livingston-Learmonth Gallery, New York, US

1973

Gallery One, Beirut, Lebanon

1966

Contemporaries Gallery, New York, US

1954

Lebanese Club, Mexico City, Mexico

1949

Gallery One, Beirut, Lebanon

1945

Gallery One, Beirut, Lebanon
Saint Georges Hotel and Yacht club, Beirut, Lebanon

Selected Group Exhibitions

2020

Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950-1980s, Grey Art Gallery, New York, US
Modern Masters, Meem Gallery, Dubai, UAE

2019

Traces of Drawings, Nabu Museum, El Heri, Lebanon

2018

The Permanent Collection, AUB Byblos Bank Art Gallery, Lebanon
Millenia of Creativity, Nabu Museum, El Heri, Lebanon
A Century in Flux, Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah, UAE
Melancholia, The Boghossian Foundation, Brussels, Belgium
Ten Stories from the Sursock Museum Collection, Nicolas Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon

2017

Lines of Subjectivity: Portrait and Landscape Paintings, Jordan National Gallery, Amman, Jordan
Chefs-d’Oeuvre de l’Art Moderne et Contemporain Arabe, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France
Poetics, Politics, Places, Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes Timoteo Navarro in Tucumán, Argentina

2016

The Short Century, Sharjah Museum, Sharjah, UAE
The Sea Suspended, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Tehran, Iran

2014

Sky Over The East, Emirates Palace, UAE

2012

Art From Lebanon, Beirut Exhibition Center, Beirut, Lebanon

1989

Barbican Gallery, London, UK
Institut du monde Arabe, Paris, France

1978

University Art Gallery, Albany, New York, US

1977

Museo del Folklore Romano, Rome, Italy

1974

Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, US

1973

Salon de Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, France

1970

Birla Institute of Art and Culture, Calcutta, India

1968

The One Hundred Sixty-third Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and
Sculpture, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, US

1967

Seven Decades, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, US

1952

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, US

1947

National Museum of Art, Beirut, Lebanon

1939

Lebanon Pavilion, World’s Fair, New York, US

1934

Salon des Artiste Français, Paris, France

Awards and Honors

1980

Medaglia d’Oro of the Accademia d’Italia dello Arte e del Lavoro, Italy

1968

Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, US

1956

Lebanese National Order of the Cedar, Lebanon

1934

Best Drawing Award, Ecole Supérieure Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France

Collections

Akron Art Institute, Ohion, US
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, New York, US
Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Calcutta, India
Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, US
Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio, US
Diocese of Saint Maron, Detroit, Michigan, US
Embassy of Lebanon, Washington D.C., US
General Time Corporation, Hartford, Connecticut, US
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, US
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, US
Mc Clusky, New York, US
Museum of Modern Art, New York, US
Mutual Benefit Life Building, New York, US
New York University Art Collection, New York, US
Raytheon Company, Bedford, Massachusetts, US
Xerox Company, Stanford, Connecticut, US
Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon
Nicolas Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon
KA Collection, Beirut, Lebanon
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar
Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE
Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman, Jordan
The American University of Beirut, The Permanent Collection, Lebanon
Ministry of Culture, Lebanon
Nabu Museum, El Heri, Lebanon
Emile Hannouche Museum, Zahle, Lebanon
Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France
Private collection of David Rockefeller, New York, US
Private collection A. Nader, Brazil
Private collection Arida Argentina
Newark Museum of Art, New Jersey, US

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Videos
5 de PIC - tele liban - Randa Sadaka - Saliba Dwayhe
The Saliba Douaihy Project
the Saliba Douaihy Project Part 2
The Saliba Douaihy Project Part 3 - Scholarship
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Exhibitions
Art in Labor Skill / Deskilling / Reskilling المهارة ً نقضا وإعادة تشكيل
Lines of Subjectivity: Portrait and Landscape Paintings’
Millennia of Creativity
SKY OVER THE EAST
THE SEA SUSPENDED
Face Value: Portraiture
Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s
MATHAF COLLECTION SUMMARY, PART 1
CHEFS-D’ŒUVRE DE L’ART MODERNE ET CONTEMPORAIN ARABE
The Short Century
TAJREED – A SELECTION OF ARAB ABSTRACT ART 1908 – 1960
A CENTURY IN FLUX

SALIBA DOUAIHY Artwork

Untitled

SALIBA DOUAIHY, Lebanon, 1972
74 x 63 cm

Portrait of a Lady

SALIBA DOUAIHY, Lebanon, N.D.
51 x 40.5 cm

Untitled

SALIBA DOUAIHY, Lebanon, N.D.
55.5 x 76 cm

Kannoubine Valley

SALIBA DOUAIHY, Lebanon, 1950
63 x 53 cm

Related with SALIBA DOUAIHY

The art of Saliba Douaihy صليبا الدويهي
The Emergence of Abstract Art in Lebanon

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