Courtesy of Mark Hachem Gallery

Hussein Madi

Lebanon (b.1938)

Hussein Madi, painter, sculptor and engraver, is one of the Middle East’s most famous artists. Between 1958 and 1962, he studied painting at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts in Beirut before moving to Rome in 1963 to continue his studies at the Accademia di Belle Arti. He arrived in Rome for two months and stayed for 22 years!

He learned everything from frescoes and mosaics to the work of bronze. It is precisely in Italy that he developed his approach to sculpture and proposed a method to create volume from folded, seamless forms. His Toros, Birds, Woman with Cigarettes and other human silhouettes combine the radical geometrical plan with the elegance of the curve giving a remarkable individuality. In his paintings, closely related to his sculptures - with the same vocabulary, and colour - Madi depicts the variations of a subject in its multiplication and reaches an exceptional depth and harmony. Elected by his peers, he stood as President of the Lebanese Artists Association between 1982 and 1992.

"Here’s the mystery of creation that inspired my art. There is a unity at the beginning that reproduces with differences; type, number, colour and dimension. All things that are born and die respond to these four categories. The repetition in my paintings is there on purpose and is a way to honour the creator." H. Madi in L'Orient 2019.

Courtesy of Mark Hachem Gallery

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