Lebanese Abstract Artist Opens At Tate Modern
Raouda Choucair, known for her fusion of classic Arab and modern art, opens an exhibition this week at the Tate Modern in London, writes Fernande van Tets.
The apartment in which Raouda Choucair lives is a testament to her life. Her abstract paintings line the walls, and the cabinets are filled with maquettes for abstract public works she intended to have built. The drawers are crammed with notes, drawings and ideas documenting a career that now, with Choucair aged 97, seems to be finally taking off.
Until today, these objects seemed destined to be the preserve of a few people in the know. Often misunderstood by her Lebanese contemporaries, Choucair lived a solitary life, ruing the lack of recognition that her attempt to rhyme modernism with Arab art garnered. But now, over 120 pieces, many of them never seen outside her studio, have been shipped off to the Tate Modern in London, for the first major museum show of Lebanon’s first abstract artist. The show opens on April 17 and will run for six months [until Oct. 20].
