Alfred Basbous (28 December 1924 – 1 January 2006) was a Lebanese modernist artist and sculptor. His works are often abstract or figurative variations on the female body, notable for their fluidity of form. Drawing from a diverse range of sources, including works by

Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi-abstract art, abstract monumental Bronze sculpture, bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. Moore ...

Jean Arp Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (; ; 16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist. Early life Arp was born Hans Peter Wilhelm Ar ...

, and

Constantin Brâncuși Constantin Brâncuși (; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter, and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century and a pioneer of modernism ...

, Basbous worked with marble, bronze, and stone to express what he saw as the simple essence of the human form, divesting it any embellishments he considered frivolous or meaningless. His works also display the influence of Phoenician culture, Lebanese folk art, and Christian

Maronite Church The Maronite Church (; ) is an Eastern Catholic '' sui iuris'' particular church in full communion with the pope and the worldwide Catholic Church, with self-governance under the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. The head of the Maronit ...

iconography.

Biography

Basbous was born in the village of Rachana, Lebanon, the son of a Christian cleric. After a period working as a mason for a railroad company, he began carving sculptures depicting birds, reptiles, and the female nude, which was to become a recurring theme of his work. Basbous gave his first exhibition in 1958 at the Alecco Saab Gallery in Beirut. By 1960, aided by a scholarship from the French government, he was studying under the sculptor René Collmarini at L’Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Artes de Paris. The following year works by Basbous were exhibited in the International Sculpture Exhibition at the Musée Rodin in Paris. Basbous visited Henry Moore’s studio in 1972, a year in which modernist public sculptures were unveiled all over Britain. Impressed by the British government’s support for the arts, he prevailed upon his own government to follow Britain’s example, taking the initiative himself by establishing his birthplace Rachana as an open-air sculpture park. From 1994 to 2004 he hosted the International Symposium of Sculpture at Rachana, where sculptors from all over the world were invited to work and exhibit. The park is today a UNESCO site.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Basbous, Alfred Lebanese sculptors 20th-century Lebanese artists Modern artists 1924 births 2006 deaths 21st-century sculptors 20th-century Lebanese sculptors