The Lebanese civil war, which began in 1975 and ended in 1990, claimed an estimated 150,000 lives, left 200,000 wounded and displaced almost a million civilians. It also ravaged visual arts in the country, cutting the capital, Beirut, in two, destroying entire archives and driving many artists into exile. The art scene still hasn’t fully recovered. It will get a much-needed boost this month, however, when Beirut’s historic Sursock Museum reopens after a seven-year renovation.
The Sursock mansion, completed in 1912, is an ornate, white wedding cake of a building, at the top of a hill in the capital’s swanky Achrafieh neighbourhood. Combining Venetian and Ottoman architectural styles, the building is a melange of influences, much like Beirut. Originally the residence of aristocratic art-lover Nicolas Sursock, it was bequeathed to the city on his death in 1952. President Camille Chamoun subsequently used it as a showpiece in which to host visiting dignitaries.
‘Only the crème de la crème of society’ … Lady Cochrane Sursock with a visitor to an exhibition of Oriental carpets in 1963. Photograph: Sursock Museum
When it opened as a museum in 1961, the mansion housed exhibitions from artists in the Middle East and around the world, as well as the prestigious Salon d’Automne for local figures. It continued in this capacity through the civil war until its closure in 2007, with a brief pause for renovations in the 70s. It focused on paintings, showing the work of Lebanese artists Chafic Abboud, Paul Guiragossian, Saloua Raouda Choucair and Aref Rayess, as well as international artists. Several rooms, including an oriental-style salon, were kept as Sursock left them.
Salon d’Automne, in particular, emerged as a weather vane for the visual arts in Lebanon, as well as a proving ground for young artists looking for their first big exhibition. “It was an important frame for artistic life in 1960s Beirut,” museum director Zeina Arida tells me in her office in the gutted museum, which hosted only to paint-spattered workers in the frenzied lead-up to the reopening.
From his office overlooking the sea on the American University of Beirut campus, Tarek Mitri, chair of the museum’s committee, further emphasises the significance of the annual salons. Launched “to give visitors a flavour of new trends in Lebanese art”, the salons also led to the creation of an archive of Lebanese modern art: work displayed there now comprises much of the museum’s permanent collection. “If you want a picture of Lebanese modern art, all you need is to put the catalogues in order,” he says.
It was all a fattoush … The Sursock in 1963
The museum couldn’t have launched the salons at a more opportune time. The visual arts, and painting in particular, were rapidly gathering steam in early 1960s Beirut, says Cesar Nammour, an art critic who opened Contact Gallery in Beirut’s Hamra district in 1972 and now runs the Modern and Contemporary Art Museum in the northern coastal city of Byblos. “The first gallery in Lebanon, Gallery One, was established in 1962,” he tells me as we sit in his light-filled bookshop on Monot Street, Beirut. Green eyes flashing, Nammour continually hops up to pull books down from shelves in a way that belies his advanced age. “It was the beginning of Beirut becoming a cultural centre; the beginning of a movement that would influence the entire Arab world.”
In the early 60s, petrodollars from the Gulf were pouring into Lebanon via a new international airport, the cost of living was minimal and graduates from Lebanon’s newly established arts college – as well as poets, playwrights, musicians, and writers – were finding their artistic identities. “It was all a fattoush,” Nammour giggles, referring to the Lebanese salad of herbs, bread and vegetables. “Everything was intermingled and influencing each other.”
Randa Mirza’s The Selective Residence/Beirutopia 2013, part of the Sursock’s new exhibition City in the City. Photograph: Courtesy the artist/Galerie Tanit
The appeal of the salons wasn’t just based on high culture. Lebanese novelist Hanan al-Shaykh emphasises the see-and-be-seen aspect. “We were all full of ourselves,” she admits. “Everyone used to go, the crowds were amazing … only the creme de la creme of society. People went because it was prestigious, not because they were interested in the art.”
As for the artists, “There was a lot of enthusiasm to exhibit,” says Nammour. “The selection process in particular – the museum selection committee regularly received 300 submissions, of which they chose 80 – brought about the idea that the salon was elite. If you were accepted by Sursock, you’d reached a certain standard.”
These climate-controlled racks store the Sursock’s permanent collection. Photograph: Nabû Productions/The Sursock Museum
In 1975, civil war broke out. Sectarian factions supported by international powers violently tore the city into two halves along the so-called Green Line: Christians in east Beirut and Muslims in the west. The Sursock “never closed” during the war, says Arida – the mansion is well on the east side of the Green Line – but the fighting reduced its scope and impact. “The vision of the museum became more limited,” Nammour says. Many of Beirut’s artists fled.
“There hasn’t been the same vigour since the war of people wanting to make art,” he adds.
Over the last five years, as Beirut has become a more popular destination for European tourists in particular, there has been a swell in public interest in the arts, supporting the launch of the Beirut Art Center, Ashkal Alwan’s Home Works forums, and in new galleries all over town. During the Sursock Museum’s $15m (£9.8m) renovation, workers dug a cavernous exhibition hall four stories under the mansion, and built a 166-seat auditorium, workshops for painting restoration and a library housing books, archival photographs, and news clippings. Sursock’s original rooms have been restored with the help of an international group of artisans.
This time, Mitri, Arida and her team insist, the Sursock Museum won’t be just for the well-heeled diplomats, socialites and the creative classes. “The arts in Lebanon has traditionally been an elitist thing,” Mitri says. “But I don’t want to see the same people at every event. This was Sursock’s purpose – for the museum to be for all Lebanese. If we successfully open it up, we will be faithful to his legacy.”
• The Nicolas Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon, reopens on 8 October.
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