Aref el Rayess

Aref el Rayess was a Lebanese artist (1928-2005) with an oeuvre that spanned painting, drawing, collage, and sculpture. Having lived in many different places around the world, wherever Aref el Rayess went, he would drink in the spirit of his time and place like a sponge, ingesting it and making it his own. He produced work with a distinct signature, which nevertheless expresses the zeitgeist of his era, and the specificities of the art scene and period in which he lived. He was a traveler and an independent thinker, breathing freedom into all the work he produced. Freedom of thought, freedom of expression: whatever he felt within would radically modulate his painting style and subject. This very first extensive monography devoted to El Rayess unveils his impressive and hitherto little explored body of work. It also provides an overview of his complex and chameleonic artistic practice between 1949 and 2005.Aref el Rayess, born in Aley (Lebanon) in 1928, studied art in Paris under Fernand Léger, among others, and lived in Lebanon, France and Italy. After the beginning of the civil war in 1975, he moved to Saudi Arabia and was art commissioner for the city of Jedda. His desert paintings were also created during this time. Rayess took part in exhibitions all over the world. He died in Beirut in 2005.