painters

Blanche Loheac-Ammoun

artist painter

Blanche Loheac Ammoun, 1912 by Nicole Malhamé Harfouche:

Of Lebanese origin and nourished by the resplendence of our fiery sun, our starry skies and our landscapes full of light, Blanche Lohéac Ammoun left at a very early age to encounter the Occident. And there, in this sensitive spirit, was the union of the poetry of the Orient and the thought of refined French culture.

Attractive and easy to approach, her painting reveals itself in all its magic detail. Before the actual subject: of a sketch, the notes she takes of nature in themselves alone reveal a very acute and intense personality. Moved by the internal rhythms that animate her painting, she penetrates the canvas as she throws herself into a poem where the words clash and jangle before being ordered into sweet music.

Blanche Lohéac Ammoun is within everything she does, not superficially by some projection of her physical image but much more profoundly there. One might say that having seized in nature something of its first quivering movement; she is herself what she displays before our eyes. She invites us to a mystical ascension which immediately places her work on a very high aesthetic and spiritual place that at the same time excludes all the facility of either expressionism or the abstract.

Entirely characteristic of her talent, these paintings are feasts of light, of mobility and spontaneous freshness that are ceaselessly renewed. This very free and very personal treatment seems to suit her temperament, finding in it an ideal means of expression.

In French - Blanche Loheac Ammoun, 1912 par Nicole Malhamé Harfouche:

D’origine libanaise, nourrie de l’éclatement de notre soleil de feu, de nos ciels etoilés, de nos paysages lumineux, Blanche Lohéac Ammoun partit très jeune à la rencontre de l’Occident. Là s’unirent en cette âme sensible, la poésie de l’Orient et la pensée d’une culture française raffinée.
Séduisante et facile d’accès, sa peinture se révèle dans le détail assez magique. Les notes qu’elle prend sur la nature, devant le motif, révèlent à elles seules une personnalité très aigue. Mue par les rythmes intérieurs qui l’animent, elle pénètre dans son tableau comme elle s’élance dans un poème où les mots tintent et s’affrontent avant de s’ordonner en une douce musique.

Blanche Loheac Ammoun est dans tout ce qu’elle fait. Ell n’y est pas superficiellement par quelque projection de son image physique. Elle y est beaucoup plus profondément. On dirait qu’ayant saisi dans la nature quelque chose de son premier frémissement, elle est même ce qu’elle nous donne à voir. Elle nous convie à une ascension mystique qui situe d’emblée son œuvre sur un plan esthétique et spirituel très élevé, excluant à la fois les facilités de l’expressif et celles de l’abstrait.

Tout à fait caractéristiques de son talent, ces peintures sont des fêtes de la lumière, d’une mobilité et d’une fraîcheur spontanée qui se renouvellent sans cesse. Cette fracture très libre et très personnelle semble convenir à son tempérament, qui tient en elle un moyen d’expression fait sur mesure.

Featured Works

 Ancient Land
Ancient Land

1961, sand, mica, powdered pigment, 180 x 100 cm. A further development of the sand and mica medium, and one of the “Sablirise” works exhibited in Beirut in 1962. At the exhibition the paintings were illuminated by a black light, adding a mysterious luminosity to the heavy, dark textures. Ammoun is working now on still another innovation, an idea that she calls “Lithophore”, which combines removable pieces of jewelry set into sand and mica backgrounds.

 
 Taking Wing iridescent sand, 100 x 100 cm
Taking Wing iridescent sand, 100 x 100 cm
 
 Beit Meri
Beit Meri

1936, Oil on canvas, 80 x 60 cm. Many of Ammoun’s first paintings are of the Lebanese landscape, painted from nature in the post-impressionistic manner followed by most artists of that period. The forms, simply stated and vigorously defined, show an interest in flat patterns reminiscent of early Gauguin.

 
 Phoenician Treaties
Phoenician Treaties

1939, two panels, oil on canvas, 90 x 30 cm, each. Commissioned to execute a series of murals for exhibition in the Lebanese Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, Ammoun produces four canvases of impressive size, each 3 meters in length by 1 meter in height, which illustrate Phoenicians concluding treaties with various ancient peoples. These two smaller panels are among several preparatory studies for the final work, which hangs today in Ammoun’s Beirut residence.

 
 Jewelry
Jewelry

1940-1955. Dissatisfied with a lack of originality in her painting, Ammoun for a number of years turns her energies to jewelry-making and writing. These necklaces of semi-precious stones are from that period. She also explored ceramics and tapestry design during this period.