Marie Haddad

Born in Beirut, to a prominent family of bankers, Marie Hadad completed her education in 1908 at the exclusive French school ‘L’Ecole des Dames de Nazareth’, where she studied the work of the French Masters in both literature and arts. She married in 1916 and the couple had three daughters.
In the early 1920s, Hadad began painting purely for pleasure having undertaken some art training in 1924/25 with the French artist Kober, who had an art school in Beirut. In 1930, she began exhibiting her art in Beirut and quickly gained recognition for her enduring and passionate portraits of bedouins and Lebanese highlanders. In fact, her chosen subject earned her the nickname of ‘The Bedouin’s Artist’.
In 1933, her friend ‘Le Comte De Martel’, French Ambassador to Lebanon, invited Hadad to show her work in Paris, with the result that she became the first and only Lebanese artist to be admitted at ‘Le Salon d’Automne Du Grand Palais’ in Paris from 1933 until 1937. Her first solo exhibition was held at Georges Bernheim Gallery in 1933, where she continued to exhibit every year until 1940. She also exhibited in London and New York, and took part in the New York World’s Fair of 1939 and the Cleveland International Exhibition of 1941.
Hadad was a leader and pioneer in the Lebanese art circle, heading the ‘Association des Artistes du Liban’. Her salon was famous as a meeting place for Beirut’s intellectuals and artists. She was also a proficient writer.

Submitted by Artscoops