“I only stop when both colour and light match..."
"... I cannot escape from colour, it is my fate and nature - my eyes must have been daz­zled for ever. The impact between two colours cre­ates light, but whether it be true or false, this “theory” does make me paint”.
Shafic Abboud, (Mai 1982) Galerie Claude Lemand: Shafic Abboud: Light and Colours: Paintings, 1958-2002, Paris.

Shafic Abboud is considered as the long-standing forefather of Lebanese contemporary art, paving the way for the next generations and leaving a legacy which embodied a visionary approach to light, colour and human complexity.

Born in 1926 in the mountainous village of Mhaydseh in the Bekaa Valley, Shafic Abboud’s connection to the landscape and light of Lebanon remained strong, despite his relocation to Paris in 1947. At age twenty, Abboud began his studies at the prestigious École Nationale des Beaux-Art in Paris. A yearly visitor to Lebanon in the year of 1975 and the beginning of the civil war, Abboud was forced to stop his yearly pilgrimages to Beirut and his hometown. This heralded a time of inventiveness and diversification for the artist as he dedicated much time to exploring tapestry, sculpture and lithography. Studying with prominent Parisian artists of the time, with the likes of André Lhote and Fernand Léger amongst others, the artist moved away from figuration and towards the Parisian taste for abstraction. In the present work, the artist used bold sweeping colour blocks of red, orange, yellow, and plummy purples juxtaposed with distinct clouds of mellow olive, icy blue and stony greys, bridging the raw natural beauty and light of Lebanon with the eclectic and dynamic palettes of his Parisian contemporaries.