Shafic Abboud (Lebanon, 1926-2004)Le Tilleul (The Lime Tree) oil on canvas, framedsigned, dated and titled in French "Le tilleul devient vraiment envahissant (The lime tree has become very invasive)" (bottom centre), further signed titled and dated, and inscribed "Salon des Realites Nouvelles 1988" (verso), executed in 1988115 x 125cm (45 1/4 x 49 3/16in).注脚AN EXQUISITE PAINTING BY SHAFIC ABBOUD EXHIBITED AT THE SALON DES REALITES NOUVELLES, PARIS IN 1988Provenance: Property from the collection of the artist's partner Mrs Michèle Rodière, ParisExhibited:Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Grand Palais, Paris, 1988Published:Shafic Abboud, Editions CLEA, 2000, illustrated in colour p.99"Like Renoir, Vuillard and Bonnard, Shafic Abboud is above all, an eye. He sees colour and immediately fragments it into light. His canvas is a bullfighter's outfit. It can be discombobulated and magnificently renewed according to its own logic, made up of flashes and vibrations, shivers and juddering. The result is there before us, as powerful as evidence: that window opened onto the ungraspable turmoil wherein forms refuse distinguishing characteristics in favour of the forces that inhabit them, elastic and fluid forces, nonetheless hard, like those underpinning the crucial universe." - Salah Stetie"In the genesis of each painting, there is a visual trigger coming from an event which we have experienced. Why chose one or another moment of daily life? This is still a real mystery to me and there is no explanation for the reasons of my adherence. All in all, painting is like telling a story, yet my language is the paint and everything is enacted and decided on the canvas and within its making. The work is finished once the initial impact is restored and life is recovered, through trial and error. To sum up, the more I go forward, the less I know about painting" - Shafic AbboudIntricate, finely worked, and deeply personal, "Le Tilluel" is a large and exemplary abstract masterpiece by Shafic Abboud. A vibrantly articulated composition, which featured in the renowned Salon des Realites Nouvelles at the grand Palais in 1988, the the present work is a supreme rendition of the colorful abstraction which established Abboud as one of the most lauded Lebanese artists of the modern era. A meticulous and fastidious colourist, Abboud was renowned for his methodical approach to draftsmanship, exploring and examining prospective pigments and palettes before each composition. The movement from considered, systematic preparation to free-flowing, primal and spontaneous result could not be more emphatically captured than in the present work, where a vibrant swarm of impulsive strokes chase and intersect across the canvas in an array of earthen and leafy tones. Shafic Abboud studied at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) under César Gemayel (1898–1958) before he went to Paris in 1947. There he studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and frequented the studios of Jean Metzinger (1883–1956), Fernand Léger (1881–1955), and André Lhote (1885–1962).He returned to Lebanon in 1949 and held his first solo show of figurative paintings in Beirut in 1950. The following year he resettled in Paris. During the first half of the 1950s Abboud developed an admiration for the art of Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), Roger Bissière (1886–1964), and Nicolas de Staël (1914–1955). With the support of the art critic Roger van Gindertael (1899–1982), Abboud had his first Parisian exhibition of abstract works in 1955. He was invited to the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris and was the only Arab artist included in the first Paris Biennale in 1959. As a painter Abboud is renowned for the subtle incorporation of his Lebanese roots, namely his childhood memories and the landscape of Mount Lebanon, into his masterfully balanced compositions, as well as for his balanced use of colour. He travelled often and consistently returned to his homeland, where he played a major role in Beirut's cultural and artistic life.