Lot 16: SALIBA DOUAIHY (LEBANESE, 1912-1994) Untitled (View of Lebanon) signed ‘S.

SALIBA DOUAIHY (LEBANESE, 1912-1994) Untitled (View of Lebanon) signed ‘S. Douaihy’ (lower left) oil on canvas 18¿ x 23 7/8 in. (46 x 60.5 cm.) Painted circa 1950s

PROVENANCE: Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner in the late 1980s. Born in 1910 in Ehden, Saliba Douaihy grew up familiar with the traditional Lebanese landscape. Exposed to art from an early age when he discovered the religious paintings inside the churches in his hometown, he was sent by his father to Beirut to study art where he soon started working in the atelier of the Lebanese artist Habib Srour. The young Saliba was often involved in commission projects as his assistant, an experience that left an indelible mark on the artist. In time, Douaihy went on to create his own distinctive style, much inspired by his homeland’s landscapes. In the fall of 1932, Douaihy was granted a scholarship from the Lebanese government to pursue his studies in Paris at the prestigious Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. After his graduation, Douaihy returned to Lebanon in 1937 as an established and prolifc painter opening his own studio. Back in the Qadisha Valley of his homeland, Douaihy focused on his own interpretation of the Lebanese landscapes painting villages, monasteries and the Lebanese folklore in a classical style with elements of Impressionism, remaining close to his observations as he moved around the scenic villages. In 1950, Douaihy moved to the United States of America where he lived in New York City until 1975. At this point the infuence of Expressionism began to refect in his works later presenting a gradual shift to abstraction which is prevalent in the present lot. This seminal work, representing a typical Lebanese village with the red brick roofs, lush greenery and the deep blue sea and sky of the Mediterranean coast, exhibits touches of Fauvist inspiration in the colour palette with the vivid colours of the mountains and the purple and brown of the Lebanese fertile soil. A progressive transition on a human and cultural level for the artist following his move to America led to an interesting transition from fguration, with a continued narrative about Lebanese mountains and valleys, to abstraction and to reliance on colour and shape versus colour and line. The hues of green, blue, orange, and brown merge increasingly together toward the background delicately creating intermediate colours. As a result, the perspective of the mountain relative to the horizon becomes less clearly defned. A resplendent light is created from these colour fuses. In the foreground however, one can discern the typical Lebanese architecture. A pivotal transition phase before entering his entirely abstract series of works, this painting illustrates spectacular chromatic harmony, a style that would later nourish his international success. Douaihy believed that abstraction was the bridge between the Lebanese culture and the West, a way to erase boundaries and establish a form of dialogue between the two. Brilliantly achieving this ideal in the present work, his later minimalist and abstract series refecting the culminating point of this ideology. The artist’s knowledge of classical European art, his exposure to American emerging art schools such as Abstract Expressionism and Colour Field painting in New York and his Lebanese heritage unite in this work in an extraordinarily pleasing way to the viewer’s eye.