[ad_1]
When the lethal Beirut Port explosions occurred on 4 August 2020, the worldwide artwork neighborhood joined forces to assist revive the Lebanese capital’s cultural scene.
Amongst them was the Centre Pompidou in Paris, which has now unveiled three broken work it has restored from the gathering of the Sursock Museum in Beirut.
The Portrait of Nicolas Sursock (1926-30) by Kees Van Dongen with a big tear © Photograph by Rowina Bou Harb
“My first response was shock,” the museum’s director Karina El Helou says in regards to the injury to the works. “We had a conservation plan and all these years of laborious work disappeared in a single second.”
After a two-and-a-half 12 months restoration interval, the items are at present on view on the Pompidou till their return to Lebanon for the museum’s reopening in Might. The show additionally signifies “historic hyperlinks and friendship between Lebanon and France,” the director says.
The work are by notable artists of the twentieth century: the Dutch-French artist Kees van Dongen, the Croatian-Lebanese artist Cici Tommaseo Sursock, and Paul Guiragossian, who was Lebanese-Armenian. “Every art work had its personal problem,” El Helou says.
Van Dongen’s portrait depicts the Lebanese artwork collector and museum founder, Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock, who met the artist throughout a go to to Lebanon. The portray, which required stitching on its verso, had a big tear throughout the brow of the sitter.
A restorer engaged on the Portrait of Nicolas Sursock (round 1926-30) by Kees Van Dongen © Photograph by Rowina Bou Harb
Cici Tommaseo Sursock’s 1967 red-toned picture, which endured a number of tears everywhere in the canvas, is a portrait of the Lebanese artist and patron, Odile Mazloum. The portray was on mortgage to the museum and will likely be returned to the sitter. In keeping with El Helou, one of many trickiest features of its restoration was choosing the proper tone of pink.
Guiragossian’s work titled Comfort was the toughest image to repair because the explosion resulted in a few of its items to fall off. Executed with thick brushstrokes, it has not been totally reconstructed—partially, to remind viewers of the horror that occurred.
[ad_2]
Source link