Single piece
Size
Year
2011
Medium
Paintings
Reference
597be902
1928 , Lebanon
One of Lebanon’s leading abstract painters, Yvette Achkar was born in Brazil to Lebanese parents, a twin and the second youngest of nine children. When she was ten, her family moved to Beirut. Passionate about music, Y. Achkar strove to become a professional pianist until she was told her small stature technically prevented this path. Deeply disappointed, she took up painting, encouraged by Fernando Manetti (1899-1964), a Beirut-based Italian artist and teacher at the newly founded art department of the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts (Alba). In 1947 Y. Achkar enrolled at the school, part of a cohort – including Shafic Abboud (1926-2004), Helen Khal (1923-2009), and Jean Khalifé (1923-1978) – that was to shape Lebanon’s modern art world as pioneers of abstraction. There she formed life-long friendships and met architecture student Jean Sargologo, whom she married in the early 1950s; they divorced a few years later. The need to support herself as a single mother pushed her to prepare her first solo exhibition. Opening at Beirut’s Galerie La Licorne in February 1960, the exhibition was an immediate success.
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After a quarter century of pioneering work in modern and contemporary Arab art, with Agial Art Gallery playing a central role in putting Beirut back on the map of Arab art, it was time to meet the new challenges, and reach out beyond regional arenas. Three years of planning and creative architectural remodeling design work, and the new Saleh Barakat Gallery...