Hussein Madi

Lebanese artist and printmaker (1938–2024)

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حسين ماضي

Hussein Madi (Arabic: حسين ماضي; 1938 – 17 January 2024) was a Lebanese painter, sculptor and printmaker. He studied painting, sculpture and printing in Beirut (at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts) and Rome (at the Academia di Belle Arti). He lived in these two cities between 1973 and 1986. In Rome, he did advanced research on Arabic cultural heritage and Egypt. He went back to Lebanon in 1986 where he taught sculpture and engraving at the Institute of Fine Arts, Lebanese University and from 1958 to 1962, at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts. Madi's work is housed in private and public collections throughout the world. He is collected by many museums such as the British Museum; Institut du Monde Arabe; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Detroit Institute of Art (DIA); The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University]]; Bowdoin College Museum of Art; MATHAF: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; Barjeel Art Foundation; Sharjah Art Museum; The Sursock Museum and MACAM (Modern and Contemporary Art Museum) and the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts. Madi presented his work at the Venice Biennale in 2003 and the same year was awarded the Order of the Star by the Italian Government for his outstanding contribution to the country.

Life and work

Born in 1938 in Shebaa, South Lebanon, Madi's body of works is often said to relate to modern European artists like Matisse and Picasso as well as the abstract designs of Islamic art. Madi outlined a silhouette of a woman on the entire surface of the canvas with quick strokes of his large brush. His paintings are often based on interplays between straight and curved lines. The features of his characters are those of the Oriental man clearly showing his cultural heritage. In their attitudes, two expressions are found: a static one which shows permanence in the face of the transitory, and the deep Oriental faith in immortality and eternal rest, and also a facial expression of cruel irony, playing the part of the mask in the Greek tragedy or an expression of suffering through stiff posture, like the loud outburst of a horrible cry, the terrible roar of the Assyrian lioness dragging along her crushed rump. This rending roar personifies the cry of Humanity. The Italian critic Joseph Silvaggi writes about Madi: "His drawings are filled with symbols and rich with artistic conventions in simplified forms; they are an enchanted script, a résumé of figurative art, the art of modern man." He died on 17 January 2024, at the age of 85.^[1]

Awards

Madi won several prizes during his lifetime: the Sursock Museum 5th Salon Prize for Painting (1965–66), the 8th Salon's Prize for Sculpture offered by the Italian Cultural Centre in 1968/69 and the First Prize for Engraving, Citta di Lecce, Italy (1974). He was President of the Association of Lebanese Artists (1982, 1992).