The Quintessential Patron Dr Samir Saleeby 64 Dr Samir Saleeby with prints of artworks from the collection ART PATRON he donated to the American University of Beirut. Left wall, from left to right: Khalil Saleeby. (Detail) Dr Simon Khoury. 1900. Oil on canvas. 55 x 45 cm; Saliba Douaihy. (Detail) Sheikh Mountain Dignitary. 1945. Oil on canvas. 61 x 46 cm; Saliba Douaihy. Village Maid Sifting Rice. 1941. Oil on canvas. 64 x 46 cm; Saliba Douaihy. Druze Woman. 1946. Oil on canvas. 46 x 38 cm. Right wall, clockwise from top: Three works by Khalil Saleeby: Intimate Confidence. 1916. Oil on canvas. 46 x 38 cm. L’angelique. 1921. Oil on canvas. 46 x 38 cm; Infinity. 1916. Oil on canvas. 46 x 38 cm. Photography by Mansour Dib. Myrna Ayad meets Dr Samir Saleeby in I Beirut – an ophthalmologist whose vision to preserve his ancestor’s artistic legacy has brought about the donation of a priceless collection of Modern Lebanese works to an academic institution. n the summer of 1928, the elder men of London, Paris and Philadelphia in pursuit of and passion for the Saleeby clan – a prominent Lebanese art. When he returned to Beirut in 1900, Saleeby set up an family from Souk El-Gharb in Mount Lebanon – gathered atelier in the Lebanese capital, facing his alma mater’s Main in Cliff House, a sprawling villa overlooking the village of Gate and which today is home to a prime location for fast Btalloun and home to Khalil Saleeby, the artist considered food giant McDonald’s. His reputation as a predominantly the ‘father’ of Modern art in Lebanon. The villa, almost 1000 portrait artist grew as he painted dignitaries, members of metres above the Mediterranean, was Saleeby’s retreat the intelligentsia and villagers alike. The atelier became a and where he revelled in the colours of the landscape meeting point for artists and intellectuals and was where that comprise his body of work. It was also where he Saleeby taught two of Lebanon’s celebrated Modern painted portraits of his Flemish-German wife and muse, Masters – César Gemayel and Omar Onsi. Carrie Aude, who was the subject of several of Saleeby’s As the mountain breeze swept through the pine and nude pictures – a daring endeavour at the time, but one fir trees that envelop Cliff House, the Saleeby family elders that he was able to get away with given his membership sat solemn in that fateful summer of 1928, surrounded as one of the country’s bourgeoisie. This was Lebanon in by the artist’s personal collection of paintings. The father the early 20th century, a state under French colonial rule of Modern Lebanese art and his beloved wife had been that still employed a feudal system. Saleeby’s financial murdered following a dispute over water rights in Btalloun. stature allowed him the luxury of being far removed from As he died childless, the clan had assembled to discuss the scene – he first studied at the Syrian Protestant College the late artist’s inheritance. The story of one of the Arab in 1886 (now the American University of Beirut, AUB) and world’s most prized collections of Modern art begins with continued in Edinburgh, where he met American portrait Dr Shaheen Saleeby, who bought the entire set of his rela- artist John Singer Sargent and subsequently travelled to tive’s paintings and donated Cliff House to the village of 65 ART PATRON Btalloun. Over 25 oil and watercolour paintings by Khalil were transported to Shaheen’s apart- ment in the four-storey Saleeby Building on Akkawi Street in the Achrafieh district of Bei- rut. Here they remained until 2012, excluding a brief stay at the Lebanese embassy in London in 1982 with the onset of the Israeli invasion. Upon Shaheen’s death, the artworks and Salee- by Building were passed on to his son, Samir, a physician like his father who bequeathed the 60- piece-strong collection – including paintings by Modern Lebanese artists that he had acquired over the years – to AUB last year, in what is now the Rose and Shaheen Saleeby Museum, named after his parents. The Artists’ Patron It is 85 years after the death of Khalil that I meet Samir at his home in Saleeby Building, a charm- ing structure on Akkawi Street whose high- ceilinged apartments and floor-length windows invite in a beautiful stream of April light. The sa- “I knew what good art is lon is dotted with Murano glass pieces filled with Easter chocolates in shiny wrapping, set against from Gemayel and Onsi well-preserved old-school velvet furniture. I am surprised to find all the artworks – supposedly and I knew immediately at AUB – on the walls. “I had high resolution im- ages taken of the pieces and printed on canvas,” that Douaihy had grins Samir. “I don’t want to part with them just yet.” The 87 year-old retired ophthalmologist is an incredible future.” a handsome man whose features evoke those of his ancestor Khalil. The artist’s self-portraits reveal the resemblance – a similarity confirmed by Gemayel, who first met Samir in Paris in the 1940s. “He hugged me immediately and said ‘goodness, it feels like I am seeing Khalil right now!’” smiles Samir. “There wasn’t a museum we didn’t visit. César explained everything to me and we did the same tours in London.” The phy- sician savoured such encounters which fuelled his passion for art – a fervour that stemmed from his earliest childhood memories growing up in a home whose walls were adorned with Khalil’s paintings. “I remember gazing at them as an in- fant,” he recalls. “I didn’t understand what they were but they were beautiful to me. I felt that these men and women were people I could talk to, as though they were real.” 66 ART PATRON In the years following Khalil’s death, artists acquired two seminal works by Saliba Douaihy This page: Khalil Saleeby.(Detail) and enthusiasts from all over the world would in the 1960s, sold at a Christie’s Dubai auction in American University of Beirut (College Hall). call on the Saleeby family to view the paintings March 2012; Samir was yet to meet the Modern 1920. Oil on canvas. – an appeal largely spawned by Khalil’s travels, Lebanese artist, whose works would come to 81 x 60 cm. exhibitions and encounters with masters such feature predominantly in his growing collection. Facing page: Omar Onsi. The as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gustave Courbet and Aside from a brief work stint in Geneva, Cameleers. 1924. Watercolour on paper. Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes. “I remember Samir shuffled between his practice in Beirut 12 x 17 cm. thinking that there must be an urge, a neces- and lectures at the New York Eye and Ear Infir- sity to view these images,” says Samir, who went mary for three months a year between 1960–75. on to complete a Bachelor’s degree from AUB It was during this era that he met Douaihy in the in 1945. During his undergraduate years he Big Apple, though the Master’s reputation pre- took art classes with the famed Moustafa Far- ceded him. “I met and treated Paul Guiragossian roukh and went on to acquire works by him. in Beirut and he praised Douaihy,” says Samir. “He Farroukh became a close friend, whose ses- said that he’s one to watch and people will talk sions proved useful in the doctor’s career. “Back about him the way they do Van Gogh.” Douaihy then, you had to sketch something out,” explains and Samir met in 1960 in New York, by which Samir. “There were no scans or laser equipment time the artist had abandoned Impressionistic and I have to say, I have quite a nice collection paintings of Lebanon and, inspired by the Ab- of anatomical drawings.” Encouraged by his par- stract Expressionists of the period, had begun ents to pursue specialisation in the USA, Samir simplifying his homeland’s landscape into geo- joined Duke University’s School of Medicine in metric forms jolted by energetic colours. “I knew North Carolina, a state that was home to many what good art is from Gemayel and Onsi and I members of the Saleeby family, including a knew immediately that Douaihy had an incred- string of doctors, engineers and even a senator. ible future,” adds Samir. After several visits to Incidentally, North Carolina’s Museum of Art had the artist’s attic and a “failed attempt” at a por- 67 Amazingly, in 1982 a group of Japanese businessmen flew to Beirut and called on Samir to view Khalil’s paintings and offered him a handsome sum of $33 million for the works. “I told them to keep the money and take the collection on the condition that they would build a museum to house it in Lebanon.” 68 ART PATRON This page, from top: Works by Saliba Douaihy. Maaloula. 1954. Oil on canvas. 45 x 35 cm; In Search for Truth. 1965. Oil on canvas. 23 x 30 cm. Facing page: Dr Samir Saleeby holds a work by Moustafa Farroukh. (Detail) Souk El-Gharb.1942. Watercolour on carton. 35 x 25 cm. Photography by Mansour Dib. trait, Samir bought 40 works from Douaihy “all in one shot!” He points to In Search for Truth, a vibrant 23 x 30 cm work. “I was there when he was painting it,” he says. “He’d use scotch tape to make the lines finer. He told me that these were important pieces and that I should buy some, so I bought eight.” Their friendship and Samir’s ownership of numer- ous pieces have made the physician quite the connoisseur – even today, he is approached by collectors, dealers and auctions alike to verify the authenticity of Douaihy’s works. Trials and Tribulations In 1975, Samir moved back to Beirut and built Saleeby Hospital, a 60-bed infirmary adjacent to the family-owned building in Achrafieh. Sectarian and regional tensions had peaked, and on 5 January 1977, a bomb exploded on Akka- wi Street, killing 72, leaving a four-metre crater and shat- tering Saleeby Hospital. A few months later, on 16 March, Samir’s brother was killed in central Beirut on the same day that Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt was assassinated, spread- ing more violence across the country. “And we’re still here,” sighs Samir. “Lebanon is the most beautiful country in the world. We never left and never wanted to leave.” With the onset of increasing conflict and a destroyed hospital, he chose to convert his residential building’s lower floor into an operating theatre. Amazingly, in 1982 a group of Japanese businessmen flew to Beirut and called on Samir to view Khalil’s paintings and offered him a handsome sum of $33 million for the works. “I told them to keep the money and take the collec- tion on the condition that they would build a museum to house it in Lebanon,” adds Samir. Against the country’s crip- pling violence and despair in the same year with the Israeli invasion and UN-labelled genocide of the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps, Samir arrived at three major deci- sions vis-à-vis Khalil’s paintings and other Modern Lebanese artworks in the collection – First, the pieces had to be safe- guarded, and so they were transported via a chartered flight to the Lebanese embassy in London; second, a monograph celebrating Khalil’s art was necessary in paying tribute to the 69 ART PATRON This page: (Detail) Khalil Saleeby. Heliopolis Palace, Cairo. 1914. Oil on canvas. 130 x 98 cm. Facing page: César Gemayel. (Detail) Samira Saleeby. 1952. Oil on canvas. 39 x 33 cm. All images courtesy American University of Beirut, unless otherwise specified. 70 ART PATRON “Being an ophthalmolo- gist helped me a great deal you see. I have laser vision and I see things in a different way than you do.” late great artist; and lastly, the creation of a muse- told Waterbury that I’d rather keep the collec- porarily housed in a 200-metre exhibition space lo- um that would house these works was essential. tion at home and open my house to the public.” cated in an off-campus hospice in Hamra until the The 1980s and its subsequent decade, however, Rose and Shaheen Saleeby Museum would be final- proved politically, economically and socially chal- ised on AUB grounds in 2020. The deal was sealed. lenging for Lebanon in the face of heightened An Enduring Legacy “When Sotheby’s came back with the figure, people conflict. “We first considered buying an old pal- Samir’s commitment to a museum named af- told me I was crazy to donate the collection to AUB,” ace to house the works, but the war rolled in and ter his parents begs the questions: why not sell laughs Samir. “I told them ‘you think they’re coming all plans were halted,” explains Samir. “That’s when or pass this onto his children or donate to the with me to the grave?’ If I got $1 billion, I would have we thought about an academic institution and I state of Lebanon? “By selling them, I am selling a still said keep them and just build a dedicated mu- always knew that AUB was the answer.” The physi- heritage and I don’t want to do that. Their worth seum.” cian persevered and published a monograph on is in their unity,” he says matter-of-factly. “And I Khalil Saleeby (1870-1928): A Founder of Mod- Khalil’s works in 1986, encouraged by those who wouldn’t want to get involved with the Lebanese ern Art in Lebanon opened last June to much felt that the “[artist’s] heir ought to do something government.” By this time, other universities keen acclaim, as crowds from far and wide flocked to to preserve his legacy.” The book prompted a on housing the collection on their campuses had see works by a Modern Master who pushed the phone call from then-AUB President John Water- begun approaching Samir – an impressive feat in confines of conservative artistic practice. Samir bury, who was considering the establishment of a country with no ‘national’ collection of its Mod- heaves a sigh of relief. “My job here is almost an art centre and sought financial contribution ern art, save for the Sursock Museum. done,” he says. What about buying more art? “I and the donation of works. Though Waterbury AUB’s President Peter Dorman and Richard just bought a piece yesterday!” he exclaims and suggested the dedication of West Hall’s sixth floor Brow, Vice President for University Advancement rushes to bring it. “It’s by a young chap and I’m roof for the artworks, Samir wasn’t interested. stepped into the picture, appointing Sotheby’s always happy to support emerging artists,” he “Aside from the fact that it was a space on campus to appraise the collection. The auction house says. “Being an ophthalmologist helped me a and therefore inaccessible to the public, the area came back with a $100 million price tag. Brow great deal you see. I have laser vision and I see couldn’t fit the Douaihys alone!” he exclaims. “I made Samir an offer: the collection would be tem- things in a different way than you do.” 71
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