Discover the pioneer Lebanese painter and sculptor who left her mark on Arab modernism from Beirut to Cairo to Paris and beyond
Lebanese artist Saloua Raouda Choucair (1916-2017) possessed "the mind of a poet, the soul of an architect and the precision of a mathematician," according to curator Fadia Antar. After first gaining an appreciation for Islamic art history in Egypt, Choucair traveled to Paris, where for a time she worked in the studio of painter Fernand Léger. Striving to move beyond the atelier's conventions, she left the studio and began a sculptural practice which lasted from the 1950s to the 1980s. Her sculptures were composed of segmented wood, metal or other materials that were designed to be taken apart and reassembled piece by piece, in a tradition not dissimilar to Arabic poetry. In the final decade of Choucair's life, her oeuvre gained international acclaim thanks to two retrospective exhibitions at the Beirut Exhibition Center and the Tate Modern.