SAMIR SALAMEH | Untitled

Collection of the Artist
International Art Colony, Csokako
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2017

Condition: This work is in very good condition. There is no restoration apparent under the UV light. Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are very accurate.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Samir Salameh was a Palestinian/French artist who was born in Safad in 1944. In 1948 his family moved to Majd al-Krum in Galilee. Salameh started painting at a very young age and with encouragement from his teachers and especially Syrian scholar Adham Ismail he attended the Faculty of Fine Arts of Damascus University in 1972. Following his graduation he moved to Beirut where he participated in several collective exhibitions as well as in numerous international exhibitions on Palestinian Art. He contributed to the structuring of the Union of Arab Artists alongside Ismail Shammout, the first General Secretary. In 1975, Samir left to Paris to continue his studies at École des Beaux-Arts. He continued living in France where he obtained a position in the Department of Arabic Literature at UNESCO Headquarters.  Throughout his career, the artist participated in a series of foreign art exhibitions in Morocco, Egypt, Jordan and France. In the 1970s he worked alongside Palestinian artist Mona Saudi on international group exhibitions in Beirut, then moved to Tokyo before returning to Beirut and exhibiting paintings destroyed by warplanes bombed during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982.

Salwa Mikdadi, a prominent professor of Arab art at New York University Abu Dhabi, remembers the artist with a "congenial and positive spirit which served him well in the face of the adversity over years of exile from his native city of Safad (...) he had an exceptional skill in the use of colour, whether in his abstract expressionist paintings or in his more recent watercolour landscapes, and Safad was always present in his paintings. He will be missed by his many friends in the art world.” 

Samir Salameh died in 2018 at the age of 74 in Paris.