Hussein Madi – Untitled, 1989

Courtesy: His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum

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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

Stories

Hussein Madi: When Life Becomes Form

Hussein Madi’s art is brimming with life—whether abstract patterns or portraits, his paintings and prints deliver bold, gestural strokes and a bright colour palette that make his works dance. Madi’s geometric shapes—often stylistically compared to Picasso and his Cubist movement or Matisse and his cut-outs—also lend his works to the medium of sculpture, bringing his subjects even closer to life (such as Untitled, 2000). The Lebanese artist prefers to capture living forms—from birds mid-flight (Birds, 2011) and rearing bulls and horses to the human figure in all manner of domestic environments (Untitled, 2012) and rural scenes (Abstract Flora, 2001). Even his most abstracted works seem to represent animals in their basic forms (such as Untitled, 2005). His tapering, fluid black lines also seem to reference the Arabic script and his use of symmetry, pattern and harmonic balance in composition reflect the principles of Islamic art and architecture. The artist was inspired by his profound belief in “God’s universal order, in which everything is different and yet composed of the same cosmic elements.”