(1860 - 1938 - Auto portrait 110 x 75 cm)
Biography:
Habib Srour was only ten years old when his parents moved to Rome. He studied there at the Institute of Fine Arts. In 1890 he finally returned to Beirut after a long stay in Egypt. He taught art at the Imperial Ottoman School of Bashoura and in his own studio which was located in the grounds of Alfred Sursock's house in Beirut.
Srour was much in demand as a portrait painter of important Lebanese and Arab personalities of the day, religious, social or
political figures in the Ottoman Empire. In 1934, the newspaper La Syrie organized an important exhibition at the Saint George Hotel in which Srour participated.
As with all the artists of his generation, Habib Serour was faithful to the classical school but this did not prevent him from breaking out of the narrow framework of formalism in order to give himself some liberty in the choice and treatment of his subjects.
After leaving Lebanon to pursue his art studies in Rome, Serour did not return to Beirut until after a long stay in Egypt and it is very likely that his time spent abroad changed his tastes.
Although he remained busy with commissioned works on religious themes, he nevertheless allowed himself to paint a portrait or a still-life from time to time.
If in his religious work he was content to follow the well-worn paths of his predecessors and to confine his art to the tastes of his patrons, in his still-life he appears as an artist convinced of his talent. When dealing with reality, Serour intends more to draw attention to the infinite beauty concealed within the bosom of nature rather than simply to exercise his skill at reproduction.
Beyond the reality which he faithfully copied, another world appeared to him - a world which can only be reached by the path traced through nature. And it was quite logical that this concept should tie the artist to the real and thereby turn him aside from his ambitions as a creator.
Joseph Abou Rizk
There is no doubt that the paintings of the talented master of portraits, Habib Srour, have a timeless quality about them. If proof of this were needed, it was there in 1974 for all to see in the annual catalogue of the 19th Baalbeck Festival (the last festival before the 1975 war), when the perfume giant Paco Rabanne decided to use Srour’s painting ‘Portrait of an Athlete’ to depict its man of the moment. Even though the portrait had been completed some 60 years earlier, the perfume company clearly felt that the subject projected just the right mix of classical and contemporary features which made it a perfect marketing tool; surely an acknowledgement of the huge talent that Lebanese-born Srour possessed.
Portraits were what many critics believe Srour did best. In his religious commissions, which were highly in demand, the artist adopted a more conservative approach. But his portraits, which included leading political figures and dignitaries of the time, were where he experimented and expressed himself more freely.
Habib Srour’s family left Lebanon for Rome when he was ten years old. The move allowed him to study at the Institute of Fine Arts before he moved on to Egypt. It was 1890 before he returned to Beirut where he immersed himself in painting and studying at the Imperial Ottoman School of Bashoura and in his own studio which was located in the grounds of Alfred Sursock’s house in Beirut.
Srour was the artist in the new wave of the artistic renaissance emerging in Lebanon at the end of the 19th century and is credited with having brought the basic principles of art technique to Lebanon, such as highlighting the importance of light, shadowand form, say the critics, which up to then had remained inert and fixed, now became expressive and evocative.
Srour also managed to conjure up a great national feeling in his work. Many of Srour’s paintings have subjects in national dress, or depict well-known landscapes of the time. His ‘Mountain Priest’ brings to life everything about mountain society at the time. And who can forget the haunting expression of the ‘Bedouin Girl’ as she stares out at us from the canvas? And now ‘Portrait of an Athlete’ in faultless perfect Pastel Colors, has also found itself to the fore yet again; as relevant today in the world of art as it was 95 years ago.
Address: Kfar Mashoun, near the Naamtallah Hardini Church Edde Jbeil-Byblos, Lebanon
Email: [email protected]
Call: +961 3 348919
