To mark the launch of the limited-edition print series The Road to Peace, Sfeir-Semler Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Aref el Rayess (1928–2005) in our Downtown space.
In December 1975, a few months after the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war, the newlywed Aref el Rayess found himself in Algiers, having been invited to exhibit at Galerie Racim. He remained in Algeria with his wife until October 1976 and, during that period, produced a series of charcoal drawings depicting the violence of the war’s first year. Upon his return to Lebanon, he translated the drawings into etchings, with the intention of self-publishing them as the book Tariq Alsilm (The Road to Peace) in 1978. Censored by the Lebanese authorities, the publication remained in the artist’s studio for decades, its unbound etchings stacked in the stone outbuilding that served as his workshop in Aley.
Fifty years after the drawings were first made, Sfeir-Semler and the Aref el Rayess Foundation are launching a limited-edition series of 50 complete sets of prints. Concurrently with this launch, the gallery presents an exhibition of works on paper by the artist that underscores his versatility and his distinctive, chameleonic ability to shift from one mode of expression to another within the same period.
Beginning in 1958, the exhibition brings together a series of gouaches on paper depicting fighters involved in the guerrilla warfare that erupted in the mountains that year. Works from the 1960s present the artist’s “Italian phase,” including experiments in mixed media.
The early 1970s are marked by Rayess’s encounter with Hassan Fathy. Fascinated by the Egyptian architect’s work and the New Gourna Village project, Rayess produced a series of pastels on paper entitled Hommage aux bâtisseurs islamiques (Tribute to Islamic Builders) presented here. From this point onward, fantastic architecture frequently entered his paintings and drawings.
The exhibition also includes series such as Hommage au Petit Prince, after Saint-Exupéry’s renowned book: oil pastels from 1979 that Rayess presented at the French Cultural Center in Beirut in 1998, alongside a selection of both abstract and figurative landscapes in pastel and gouache from the 1960s and 1970s that reflect the artist’s sustained attention to the world around him, and his search for serenity amid the unfolding violence in Lebanon and in the wider region.
