Nabil Nahas

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Untitled, 2010 Acrylic on canvas 83 ¾ × 108 ¼ inches (213 × 275 cm)

The Art Of

Nabil Nahas

by Carter Ratcliff

Early years. Born in Beirut in 1949, Nabil Nahas grew up in two countries— Lebanon and Egypt. In the Cairo apartment building where he lived until he was nine years old, his neighbors included an American diplomat and his family. "It was a cosmopolitan environment,” he says. “As a child, I spoke English as well as Arabic.” With his parents he spoke French, the second language of educated Lebanese. The family business was textile manufacturing. Visiting the Cairo plant with his father, young Nabil was fascinated by the wide variety of woven colors and textures. When his parents resettled in their native Lebanon, his mother opened a shop called L’Amethyste. Here, in fossils and crystals, were still more colors and textures—and, in certain crystalline forms, equally fascinating qualities of light. Nahas says that, over the years, he has gathered more from nature than from art. Vacations took him to his maternal grandparents’ summer house in Ain-Aar, a village in the Metn, Lebanon’s central mountain range. Nahas remembers it as “very peaceful and cool, and that was the point, in a way. These were the days before air conditioning.” He and his friend Roy Sarrafin would visit Byblos, an ancient city on the coast of Lebanon, to collect amulets and other objects exposed by erosion during the rainy season. Founded seven thousand years ago, Byblos is thought to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world. “The cliff where Roy and I prospected was a millefeuille of the different civilizations that had inhabited the place,” says Nahas. “The things we collected ranged from Neolithic times to the Byzantine period.” At the age of ten, Nahas was enrolled in a boarding school near Beirut. When his elderly piano teacher died, he switched from music to painting. This subject was taught by a man who liked to copy works by Renoir while his students watched. Nahas remembers these performances as “terribly flamboyant” and rather amusing. It was a revelation, as well, to see how paint got from the brush to canvas. The boy already had some

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Untitled, 1982 Acrylic on canvas 108 × 84 inches (274.3 × 213.4 cm)

Untitled, 1988 Acrylic on canvas 108 × 108 inches (274.3 × 274.3 cm)

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Untitled, 1988–89 Acrylic on canvas 65 × 120 inches (165.1 × 304.8 cm)

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Untitled, 1996 Acrylic on canvas 59 × 59 inches (149.9 × 149.9 cm]

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Little Green Man, 1998–2007 Acrylic on canvas 47 ¼ × 47 ¼ inches (120 × 120 cm)

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Opium and Candy, 2004 Acrylic on canvas 96 × 180 inches (244 × 458 5 cm) The Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha

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Untitled, 2006 Acrylic on canvas Two panels, 72 × 62 inches (182.9 × 157.5 cm) each

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Tyrian Purple, 2007 Acrylic on canvas 48 × 48 inches (121.9 × 121.9 cm)

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Red Sea, 2008 Acrylic on canvas 24 × 24 inches (61 × 61 cm)

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Untitled, 2010 Acrylic on canvas Two panels, TK × TK inches (TK × TK) overall Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

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Untitled, 2013 Acrylic on canvas Three panels, 120 × 180 inches (304.8 × 457.2 cm) overall

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Untitled, 2013 Acrylic on canvas Two panels, 84 × 120 inches (213.4 × 304.8 cm) overall

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