Lot 8: * Saliba Douaihy (Lebanon, 1915-1994) View of Kfarsghab, Qadisha Valley

Saliba Douaihy (Lebanon, 1915-1994)
View of Kfarsghab, Qadisha Valley oil on canvas, framedsigned "S. Douaihy" (lower left)40 x 56.5cm (15 3/4 x 22 1/4in).

Provenance:Property from private collection, BeirutFormerly in the collection of Joseph D Raidy Exhibited:Ehden, Saliba Douaihy, Past & Present Exhibition from our Homes, Ehden Festival, 14 September 1999Literature:Joseph D Raidy Press, Saliba Douaihy, Past & Present, Ehden, 1999AN IMPORTANT EARLY TRANSITIONAL LANDSCAPE BY SALIBA DOUAIHY 'After my return to Lebanon I focused on drawing inspiration from the Lebanese landscape. I began to paint villages, houses, valleys, monasteries and villagers. I painted the landscape as it was, without alteration.[At the end of the 1930's] I began reading about modern art. I used to look at modern paintings, which most people considered ugly, and found that in my eyes, they were beautiful. Gradually, I began to lean more and more towards these paintings, and I became certain that art is creation and not the imitation of nature. Nature is one thing and art, another.I could prove to you by way of example, how after three or four paintings of the monastery of Qozhaya in Wadi Qadesha, the fourth and final painting would be abstract by comparison with the first one. This occurs by using fewer lines, and eliminating classical curves, and via a lack of detail."-Saliba Douaihy in conversation with Badr El-hageSaliba Douaihy is one of the most creative and captivating artists to emerge from Lebanon in the past century, starting life as a classical landscape painter and moving progressively towards abstraction, his body of work follows a trajectory which involved a radical inversion of artistic instincts. The present work is from a fascinating and key juncture in Douaihy's artistic progression; executed in the 1940's, this "pseudo-transitional" work charts his slow movement away from meticulous, academic, classically rendered landscapes to more simplified, colour driven, shape conscious compositions. In this depiction of the mountainscape of Kfarsghab, Douaihy exhibits his first tentative steps towards abstraction, peeling away the initial layer of detail in what would eventually lead the artist to a total submergence in pure line and colour, in his endeavour to capture landscape as it was felt, not seen. The first level of simplification Douaihy employs is the de-ornamentation of architectural surfaces, with buildings reduced to cuboid shapes with cursory touches of detail. In the foreground of the composition we already start to see the seeds of the "hard edges" that would define his later style, with light blue, ochre, and navy features of the landscape converging together in simplified blocks of colour. Published and Exhibited at the Ehden festival in 1999, the present work, with its fine provenance and documented history, is an important window into the eye of an artist who would bravely escape the traditional strictures of his academic training, and establish a pioneering artistic style. Born in Ehden in North of Lebanon, Saliba Douaihy began studying art in Habib Srour's studio in Beirut where he worked for four years. He was awarded a grant by the Lebanese government which enabled him to study at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris from 1932 until 1936. He then went to Rome and then back to Lebanon where he spent four years decorating the walls and ceilings of the church of Diman. In 1950 he travelled to the USA and he remained there until 1975.Douaihy participated in many exhibitions including the Salon des Artistes Français, Paris (1934); the New York World Fair; the Guggenheim Museum; the Salons des Réalités Nouvelles, Paris; the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and University Art Gallery, New York.Sailba Douaihy won many prizes and awards. They include the Lebanese National Order of the Cedar (1956), the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts Award (1968) and the Medaglia d'Oro of the Accademia d'Itlia dello Arte e del Lavoro (1980).