Marie Chiha Hadad was a prominent Lebanese artist and writer, best known for her figurative paintings of Lebanese subjects. This untitled, undated portrait pictures a Bedouin in traditional dress, a central subject within Hadad’s practice. She was known as the “Bedouin’s artist” as many of her portraits depicted Bedouin subjects. Rendered in bold expressive hues, with a sombre expression, emphasis is placed on this youthful protagonist, set against an abstract background. As in many of her portraits, his piercing gaze locks eyes with the beholder. Her approach has been described as Social Realism, though her painterly compositions of Lebanese subjects present figures and landscapes alike in emotive, and often dramatic, stylised forms. In representing Bedouin subjects, Hadad conjures the imagery of the Bedouin other as perceived by affluent society in Beirut and audiences of her exhibitions in France, Britain, and the United States. The first and only Lebanese artist to be admitted to the Salon d’Automne at the Grand Palais in Paris (1933–1937), Hadad exhibited extensively in Lebanon and internationally.
This is the first time the work of Marie Hadad is presented at Biennale Arte.
—Nadine Nour el Din
