Michel Basbous is a draftsman and a sculptor born in the village of Rachana in 1921. The eldest of three brothers who all became sculptors, he studiedat the Academy Libanaises des Beaux-Arts (ALBA) in Beirut from 1945-49. Basbous received a scholarship from the French government to attend L’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1957, he taught sculpture at the American University of Beirut for a year until he moved back to his hometown where he founded an outdoor exhibition of stone sculptures in the garden of the Basbous family home and an indoor exhibition of wooden carvings. 

Basbous organized a festival (1959-1960) promoting art and theater, holding lectures and international symposia in the midst of an open-air exhibition. The festival was attended by Jack Lang, Hassan Fathi and Adonis, among others. 

Michel Basbous experimented with a plethora of different materials from cement to resin, and also worked with classical materials such as stone, marble, wood and bronze. In a time when the Middle East produced classical portraits, Basbous favored abstraction in sculpture. His works are soft and organic, only rarely having  hard edges. The artist mostly focused on the human body and human connection, his works often depicting bodies that are  intertwining in a fusional embrace. 

Basbous’ works were shown in Moscow and Leningrad (1957), at the Internationale de Sculpture of the Musée Rodin exhibition (1961, 1966), in Oxford (1971) and in Tokyo (1973). His works can be found in prestigious institutions such as the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris; the Oxford Museum, UK; the Hakone Open Air Museum, Japan and Musée Zadkine, Paris. In 1974, he was awarded the Prize of the Alexandria Biennale.

Made of a copper car radiator which Basbous manipulated by using fire and chemicals, burning and eroding the material to achieve rust, texture and color, this work was created during a period of Basbous’ life which was extremely experimental. At the time, in Lebanon, he pioneered by using such unconventional mediums. This piece stands as a testament to his determination to completely fuse with the materials he worked with.