Three painters born in 1926, three routes that marked modern art in Lebanon: the Sérail de Bickfaya hosts « A century, three looks », an exhibition dedicated to Shafic Abboud, Paul Guiragossian and Elie Kanaan. The programme announces a public reception from 13 to 20 November 2026, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., after a opening scheduled for Thursday 12 November at 5 p.m.
The initiative brings together the municipality of Bickfaya and Mhaydsseh, La Maison du Futur and the Association of Lebanese Artists, LAAPS. The centenary of the three artists’ birth gives its lead to this meeting: their works belong to the same artistic history, without taking up a single path or writing.
Shafic Abboud, a link with Mhaydsseh
For Shafic Abboud, the choice of territory has a particular resonance. Born in Mhaydsseh in 1926, the painter studied at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts between 1945 and 1947 before leaving for Paris. His years of training put him in contact with several currents of European modernity.
In 1953, the Dalloul Foundation established its commitment to abstraction. Colour, childhood memories and landscapes then feed a work that maintains a dialogue between his Lebanese ties and his Parisian life. Abboud also taught at the Institute of Fine Arts at the Lebanese University from 1968 to 1975. Died in Paris in 2004, he was buried in his native village.
Guiragossian and Kanaan, two other routes
Paul Guiragossian was born in Jerusalem in 1926 to an Armenian family who had survived the genocide. Its foundation recalls its installation in Lebanon in the late 1940s and its teaching and illustrator activities. An Italian scholarship allowed him to study in Florence in 1956; A French scholarship then led him to Paris in 1962. His journey, however, retained a lasting Lebanese anchor until his death in Beirut in 1993.
Elie Kanaan presented her first personal exhibition in Beirut in 1949. Trained mainly with Georges Cyr, he went to study in Paris in 1958. The Encyclopedia of Mathaf, the Arabic Museum of Modern Art in Doha, describes the central role of colour in its compositions and its importance in the development of lyrical abstraction in Lebanon. He died in 2009.
A generation in Lebanese institutions
The three names are also found in the history of the Autumn Salon of the Sursock Museum: the institution cites them among the artists who exhibited there during the 1960s. This common presence allows the rendezvous of Bickfaya in the construction of the modern Lebanese art scene.
The visit is announced at the Bickfaya Serail until Friday, 20 November, between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. The programme broadcast by the organizers does not specify a rate of entry.
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