Saloua Raouda Choucair

Saloua Raouda Choucair (* 1916 in Beirut, Ottoman Empire ), is a Lebanese painter and sculptor.

Life

Choucair studied at the American University of Beirut. Artistic training stations in 1935 in the studio of Lebanese painter Moustafa Farroukh ( 1901-1957 ) and in 1942 at Omar Onsies ( 1901-1969 ). Their first show they had in 1947 in a gallery in Beirut. As Choucair came to Paris in 1948, she began to associate with modern Western artistic experience of abstraction in the Arab art. In Paris, she studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux -Arts, and visited the studio of Fernand Léger. In 1950 she exhibited at the Salon des nouvelles réalités and had in 1951 a solo exhibition in Paris at Colette Allendy. In the 1960s, she expanded her work on the sculpture, and it was awarded in 1963 for a stone sculpture in public space in Beirut.

The Tate Modern has some sculptures and motives: Composition in Blue Modules 1947-51, The Screw 1975-7, Infinite Structure 1963-5, 1963-5 and Poem Poem Wall 1963-5. In 2013, these are part of a retrospective showing the Tate in London.

Further Reading

• Joseph Tarrab, Hala Schoukair, Helen Kahl, Jack Aswad: Saloua Raouda Choucair: Her Life and Art, Dar An-Nahar 2002
• Christiane Valerie Gerhold: For development of art in Lebanon since 1950, cultural identity between Orient and Occident. Saarbrücken; VDM Verlag Dr. Müller 2008 ISBN 978-3-8364-5735-4