Translation from the French: Kenneth J. Mortimer

The painter and sculptor Wahib Bteddini is currently a professor of Fine Arts at the Lebanese University. He went to the Soviet Union on a scholarship in 1958 (Surikov Institute Moscow), returning in 1966 with a Masters degree in the Plastic Arts. He was offered American citizenship as a sign of his achievements and success in the country and around the world. He has exhibited a number of times in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon, and represented this country at the Arab Arts Festival held in Damascus in 1972. His sculptures in stone, bronze or fiberglass can be found throughout Lebanon. Bteddini exhibited his paintings all around the world, including Beirut, New York, Washington D.C, Moscow and several other cities. In the US alone Bteddini had 26 exhibits throughout the country.

In 1970, he won the Said Akl prize for his paintings which revealed an originality in his work that delighted all those who love this land and its traditions. None of its secrets are hidden from this artist; landscapes and scenes of the rude life of men, portraits fixed on the canvas but which breath life, proclaiming that beauty itself is a struggle which through art can exalt beings and which, without betraying their real nature, renders to men that inner brilliance which burns in their deepest of hearts.

With numerous awards to his name, including the Lebanese Cedar Badge of Honor (presidential award) and the Lebanese Philosopher Saeed Akel Award in 1970 and again in 2004, the artist and sculptor hoped to share his life’s work with a wider audience and for the past few years he has been busy building a museum of his work in his hometown in Kfarnabrekh.

Wahib is survived by His wife Samia , his daughter Lida and sons Shadi, Mazen and Tamim who live in Bethel, Connecticut.

A new school of Lebanese painting thus comes to blossom, the product of that transparence of the spirit and of things which makes up our genius; intelligence and serenity of a virginal moment that once would wish to see prolonged, like that of the wedding.

William MATAR