SALIBA DOUAIHY - LES PEINTRES DU LIBAN (THE PAINTERS OF LEBANON). Illustrated portfolio containing 14 color plates of Douaihy's paintings of Lebanon. Published by L'Imprimerie Catholique à Beyrouth [Beirut, Lebanon], 1949. LIMITED EDITION, this being Copy No. 463 of an unstated limitation. First edition.

The title page is SIGNED, INSCRIBED and DATED by SALIBY DOUAIHY: "To D. A. Davis / With my Compliments / Saliba Douaihy / 12-19-88".

Illustrated paper portfolio holding loose signatures that include a 4 page introduction by Victor Hakim and 14 TIPPED-IN COLOR PLATES of Saliba Douaihy's PAINTINGS OF LEBANON, its landscapes and people. The wrappers are protected with an original glassine dustjacket. The text is in French.

Additionally, included with the portfolio are FOUR PRINTS of SAINT MARON each HAND SIGNED by SALIBA DOUAIHY. The prints reproduce a 1957 painting by Douaihy. The prints are 9x12 inches including margins. Three of the prints are signed in gold ink at the bottom right corner of the image, one is signed in blue ink in the bottom blank margin.

CONDITION: The portfolio and its plates are all in VERY GOOD condition, the glassine dustwrapper has yellowed with age, there is a 1/2 inch closed tear to the blank right margin of the 3rd page of the 4 page introduction; overall just gently handled and still tight, bright, clean and unmarked. The portfolio's SIGNATURE and INSCRIPTION are bright and clear. A lovely copy of this rare work. Three of the four signed prints of Saint Maron are in VERY GOOD condition, bright and clean. One of the four, the one with the blue ink signature, is in GOOD condition, there is a brown fingerprint size smudge to its right margin, light corner creases, and signs of handling, but still a lovely print with a solid and bright signature.

The SIGNED and INSCRIBED PORTFOLIO and the four SIGNED PRINTS are all quite SCARCE.

We are limited to five photos on ABE but have MANY more on our site, Blank Verso Books.

About SALIBA DOUAIHY (from various Internet sources):

******Saliba Douaihy, b.1915 d.1994, was a Lebanese-American painter, one of the most renowned Lebanese artists of his generation. Douaihy was born in Ehden, a city nestled among Lebanon's tree covered northern mountains. Douaihy's interest in art was born from frequent visits to churches in his hometown where murals and paintings hung from the monumental ceilings. At the age of fourteen Saliba Douaihy was encouraged to move to the capital Beirut where he apprenticed with the famous painter Habib Srour.

At the age of 17 during the autumn of 1932, Douaihy moved to Paris to study at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts. In 1936, he studied under French artists such as Paul Albert Laurence and Louis Roger and was immersed in the French aesthetic style of the time. After graduating, Douaihy returned to Lebanon, where he worked from his studio for the next 18 years. During this period, Douaihy developed an Impressionist style of colorful compositions of the mountains and valleys of Lebanon.

Douaihy's journey to New York in the 1950s encouraged the artist to embrace an abstract style as he became acquainted with the works of Ad Reinhardt, Hans Hofmann and Mark Rothko. He worked privately in his large studio in the loft of the Maronite Church of Our Lady of Lebanon in Brooklyn Heights, New York.******