The Lebanese painter Huguette Caland died on Monday 23 September 2019 at the age of 88.

Huguette El Khoury Caland was born in Beirut in 1931. She began the first prototypes of her embroidered and hand-painted gowns in 1964. She studied art at the American University of Beirut from 1964 to 1968 but later moved to Paris in 1970. She lived and worked in New York for one year (1981-2). She then returned to Paris in 1983 where she worked under the tutorship of Rumanian sculptor George Apostu on a series of stone, wood and terracotta sculptures. Caland moved from Paris to Los Angeles in 1988, where she presently lives and works.

Since 1993, she has been exhibited at the Janine Rubeiz Gallery in Beirut where her work is permanently on display. Her artwork has also been shown at the Delta Gallery in Rome, at Tokyo’s Museum of Modern Art, the Faris Gallery in Paris, the Monaco Art Center in Monte Carlo, Joan Miro Foundation in Barcelona and the International Biennale of Venice in Italy. She also participated in Europ’Art (Geneva), Start’Art (Strasbourg) and the "Brushes for Feathers" exhibition organized by Janine Rubeiz Gallery for the benefit of the Lebanese Foundation of the National Library in 2005. Her work was sold during the Auction Sale organized by Christie’s in 2006 and 2007 in Dubai and during the Auction Sale organized by Sotheby's in 2007 in London.

Caland has pierced the galleries and institutions across the United States as early as 1970 with the Smithonian Institution in Washington DC. Recently, the Pacific Design Center and the Articultural Art Center in Los Angeles displayed her work. Caland’s work hangs in the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain in Paris. Her work is present notably in the Monaco and Beirut collections of the prominent collector Pierre Naim as well as in numerous private collections in Lebanon, France, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.

Caland’s prolific talents also include designing a line of clothing for the famous designer Pierre Cardin, illustrations of books, sculptures, and writing of screenplays.

In 2007, Caland’s joined the “Art-Paris Modern Art Fair” in Abu-Dhabi and recently in 2009 the "Art-Dubai" in Dubaï and the "Abu Dhabi Art 2009" in the United Arab Emirates with Janine Rubeiz gallery. She will be also featuring in “Art-Dubai” in the United Arab Emirates in March 2010.

Her work was sold during the Auction Sale organized by Christie’s in 2006 in Dubai and is permanently displayed at Janine Rubeiz Gallery.

Article: Aldis Browne (President - Fine Arts, Inc., Venice Ca)

It’s a good bet that when we look back at any country’s history, the arts have gone a long way toward defining its national identity. Most politicians and statesmen are soon forgotten, wars blur into memory and inventions long outlive even the most renowned inventors. When we consider Italy aren’t Dante Alighieri, Antonio Vivaldi and Leonardo da Vinci longest remembered? Who better typifies Scandinavia than Edvard Munch, Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Grieg? England reveres Shakespeare the Netherlands – van Gogh; France – The Impressionists. Influences of art and culture are indispensable elements of historical perspective.

Though it grew from an ancient culture, Lebanon is a relatively new nation; one founded only after World War I when the Ottoman Empire was formally split by the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. And perhaps no artist today better reflects Beirut’s proud international heritage than Huguette Caland. Caland was born the daughter of Lebanon’s first president. Following her education in Beirut, Caland lived for two decades in Paris, and since 1986, has called America her home.

Caland has long enjoyed a distinguished reputation. Since 2007 alone, her work has been exhibited in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Beirut, New York Los Angeles and a major auction in London and Dubai. Her art is as uniquely individual as her themes are universal. The boldly abstracted forms that underlie her canvases open dialogues with intricacy reminiscent of lace – like Arabesque architecture. Her art is often suggestive of the magical, frequently musical, the spirit of Paul Klee or the gem-like quality of Gustav Klimt. Her vision challenges rational perspective; suggestions of a distant landscape or cityscape is seen from above might be seamlessly juxtaposed with the immediacy of a garden. Not unlike the simultaneity of cubism, her themes are expressed from multiple perspectives on a single canvas. Though imposing scale can contradict intimacy, Caland unerringly creates harmony and lyricism from such diversity.

Only as Lebanon creates and recreates its own legacy will history define whatever enduring contributions to the arts it might make. Will Huguette Caland ultimately take a place as a progenitor of Lebanon’s artistic heritage? Only the test of time will answer that question…

But I wouldn’t bet against it.