فير زملر غاليري Sfeir-Semler Gallery

Aref El Rayess

Aref el Rayess (b. 1928, Aley, Lebanon - d. 2005, Aley, Lebanon) started painting at the age of eleven. In 1948 his first exhibition was held in Beirut with the support of the journalist Arlette Levy, the artist Georges Cyr, the art critic Victor Hakim and the Head of the French Institute of Archaeology Henry Seyrig.

From 1948 to 1957 el Rayess travelled between Senegal and Paris where he studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts, and the free studios of Fernand Leger, Andre Lhôte, and La Grande Chaumière among others. In 1957 he returned to Lebanon and opened a studio and an atelier of Aubusson tapestries with the Canadian Roger Caron. In 1959 after an exhibition at the Italian Cultural Centre he was offered a scholarship to study in Italy. He spent four productive years between Florence and Rome; and in 1963 the Lebanese government commissioned him to produce two sculptures to represent Lebanon at the New York World Fair. El Rayess spent two years in the USA meeting with Expressionists painters and intellectuals. Read more

In 1967 he returned to Lebanon, marked by the events in the Arab World. He was a Founding member of the Fine Arts Department at the Lebanese University where he taught, and Dar el Fan (The House of Art and Culture) with his close friend Janine Rubeiz. From that moment on, el Rayess organized, attended and participated in conferences and exhibitions on politics and arts in the Arab World. In 1972 he published a manifesto titled With Whom and Against Whom. In 1975 he was invited to Algeria where he produced a series of drawings depicting the Lebanese civil war, published as the book The Road to Peace; and in 1978 he participated in the International Art Exhibition in Solidarity with Palestine. He started working in Saudi Arabia around this time, where he produced around 13 sculptures between Jeddah, Tabuk and Riyad. He stayed in Jeddah until 1987 and returned to Aley, Lebanon, in 1992, where he lived until he passed away in 2005.

1/4Aref el Rayess, Artist's Mother, 1953, oil on canvas, 65 × 52 cm
2/4Aref el Rayess, Untitled, 1960s, oil on canvas, 89.7 × 150.4 cm
3/4Aref el Rayess, Al Hakem (The Ruler), oil on canvas, 99 × 150 cm
4/4Aref el Rayess, Untitled, 1988, oil on canvas, 75.5 × 121.5 cm

Selected Press

Gallery Exhibitions

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2023

  • Labyrinths, Paintings from 1999, Sfeir-Semler Downtown, Beirut, Lebanon

  • Works 1957 – 1978, IVAM, Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Valencià, Spain

2022

  • Works 1960 – 1988, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany

  • Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE

2021

  • Paintings, sculptures, collages, drawings, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon

2002

  • Espace SD, Beirut, Lebanon

2000

  • UNESCO, Beirut, Lebanon

1998

  • French Cultural Centre, Beirut, Lebanon

  • Caves de France, Beirut, Lebanon

1995

  • French Cultural Centre, Beirut, Lebanon

1976

  • Galerie Racim, UNAP, Alger, Algeria

1974

  • Arab Cultural Centre, Syria

  • Dar el Fan, Beirut, Lebanon

1970

  • Dar el Fan, Beirut, Lebanon

1969

  • Damascus National Museum, Damascus, Syria

1968

  • Galerie L'Orient, Beirut, Lebanon

  • Dar el Fan, Beirut, Lebanon

1965

  • Galeria Excelsior, Mexico

1963

  • La Licorne, Beirut, Lebanon

1961

  • Galeria d'Arte del Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Italy

1958

  • Italian Cultural Centre, Beirut, Lebanon

  • Alecco Saab, Beirut, Lebanon

1957

  • Foyer Franco-Libanais, Dakar, Senegal

1948

  • AUB, Beirut, Lebanon

Selected Group Exhibitions

2026

  • In Absence and in Presence: Works from the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection, Aranya Art Center, Qinhuangdao, China

2025

  • Resolutions: Celebrating 15 years of Mathaf, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar

  • The Shade, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Karantina, Beirut, Lebanon

2024

  • Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy

2023

  • Beirut and the Golden Sixties, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar

2022

  • Beirut and the Golden Sixties: A Manifesto of Fragility, Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany

  • Manifesto of Fragility, 16th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France

2019

  • 6th Salon d'Automne, Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon

  • 5th Salon d'Automne, Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon

  • International Exhibition of Sculpture, Musee Rodin, Paris, France

  • New York World's Fair, Lebanese Pavilion, USA

  • La Feluca, Italy

  • Galeria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Italy

  • Galeria Numero, Italy

  • Galeria Numero, Italy

  • 3rd Biennale of Alexandria, Egypt

  • 1st Biennale of Paris, France

  • 2nd Biennale of Alexandria, Egypt

  • 6th Salon de Peinture et de Sculpture, UNESCO, Beirut, Lebanon

  • Salon d'Automne of UNESCO, Beirut, Lebanon

2003

  • 24th Salon d'Automne, Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon

2000

  • International Symposium of Sculpture, Aley, Lebanon

1995

  • Salon d'Automne of UNESCO, Beirut, Lebanon

1978

  • The International Art Exhibition in Solidarity with Palestine

1975

  • 22nd Salon de Peinture et de Sculpture, UNESCO, Beirut, Lebanon

1974

  • Lebanese Council, Tubingen, Germany

1972

  • Centro d'Arte La Baracaccia, Italy

  • Contemporary Arab Art, Iraq

Awards

  • Prize of Sculpture & Painting, Salon d'Automne, Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon

  • 1st Prize of Sculpture, Lebanese Ministry of Public Works

  • Prize of UNESCO

Public Collections