Cici Tommaseo Sursock

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Educated across several European and Middle Eastern art institutions, Cici Tommaseo Sursock developed a cosmopolitan visual language shaped by displacement and cultural plurality. She studied painting at the School of Fine Arts in Belgrade under Ivan Tabaković, and later continued her formation at the School of Applied Arts in Ankara, working in the studios of Nurettin Ergüven and Turgut Ziam. Her early professional experience included a post as designer for the British Ministry of Information in Cairo during the 1940s, followed by an extended period of residence in Egypt and Lebanon. After the nationalisation of her family’s properties under the Nasser regime, Sursock settled permanently in Beirut, where she built a consistent exhibition record. Her solo shows at the Phoenicia, Vendôme and St. Georges hotels, alongside repeated participation in the Salon d’Automne at the Sursock Museum, positioned her within the post-war Lebanese art scene. Her practice is defined by an introspective approach to portraiture: the human face, often isolated within neutral or indeterminate space, becomes a vehicle for psychological and spiritual resonance. The deliberate rejection of landscape subjects in favour of figuration underscores her sustained interest in the inner life of her sitters rather than anecdotal description. Sursock’s disciplined brushwork, controlled palette and focus on the gaze reveal both her academic background and her negotiation between European modernist formality and the lived experience of exile. Her paintings, now part of the Sursock Museum collection, mark a subtle yet enduring contribution to the formation of a distinct post-war Lebanese modernism grounded in individual vision rather than collective style.