Nabil Nahas (born 18 September 1949 in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

, Lebanon) is a Lebanese artist and painter living in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Biography

Nabil grew up in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

and Beirut, before moving to the United States for college to study at

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

. He is the younger brother of the Lebanese/Brazilian businessman Naji Nahas. He earned a BFA in 1971 and an MFA from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1973. Encounters with

contemporary painters Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it i ...

at Yale influenced Nahas to move to New York after graduation.

Painting career

He exhibited regularly at important New York galleries and received critical acclaim for his work. Usually working "in" an abstract idiom, Nahas repeatedly reinvented himself. Nahas’ paintings have made use of geometric motifs and decorative patterns inspired Levantine art architecture. Nahas also employs traditional Western

abstract painting Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...

pointillistic Pointillism (, ) is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term "Pointillism" wa ...

and

impressionistic Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

techniques. Sometimes he combines these traditions in brightly colored paintings, suggestive of the richness of nature and of the imagination. One of Nahas’ motifs is

starfish Starfish or sea stars are star-shaped echinoderms belonging to the class Asteroidea (). Common usage frequently finds these names being also applied to ophiuroids, which are correctly referred to as brittle stars or basket stars. Starfish ...

, sometimes cast in

acrylic paint Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. Depe ...

, on top of which he layered high-chroma acrylic paint. In his most recent work, Nahas introduced recognizable Lebanese cedar, pine and olive trees in his most direct references yet to his native land. In 2018, Nahas was commissioned to produce a cedar painting to be featured on a new stamp in Lebanon.

Exhibition history

Solo exhibitions

* 1973 Yale University, Connecticut * 1977

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

, Ohio * 1978 Robert Miller Gallery, New York * 1979 Robert Miller Gallery, New York * 1980 Robert Miller Gallery, New York * 1987 Holly Solomon Gallery, New York * 1988 Galerie Montenay, Paris * 1988 Holly Solomon Gallery, New York * 1994

Baldwin Gallery The Baldwin Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Aspen, Colorado established by Richard Edwards in 1994. The gallery features a variety of mainly American but also international contemporary artists and works including painting, drawing, sculpt ...

, Aspen, Colorado * 1997

Sperone Westwater Sperone Westwater is a contemporary art gallery in the Bowery, in Manhattan, in New York City. The partners are Angela Westwater and Gian Enzo Sperone. The gallery was started on Greene Street in Soho in 1975;Alex Williams (December 1, 2010)Th ...

, New York * 1998 Baumgartner Galleries, Washington, DC * 1998 Milleventi, Milan * 1999 Sperone Westwater, New York * 2002 25th Bienal De São Paulo * 2002 J. Johnson Gallery, Jacksonville Beach, Florida * 2005 Galerie Xippas, Paris * 2005 Sperone Westwater, New York * 2009 Galerie Tanit, Munich, Germany * 2010 FIAF Gallery, New York * 2010 Beirut Exhibition Center (BEC), Beirut, Lebanon * 2011 Lawrie Shabibi Gallery, Dubai, United Arab Emirates * 2011 Ben Brown Fine Arts, London, England * 2013 Sperone Westwater * 2013 Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai, UAE * 2014 Ben Brown Fine Arts, London * 2016 Saleh Barakat Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon *2019 Saleh Barakat Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nahas, Nabil 1949 births Lebanese painters Living people Artists from Beirut