Yvette Ashkar

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Yvette Achkar was born in Sao Paolo, Brazil in 1928. Her first love was music and she had aimed to become a professional pianist. After being rejected from the Lebanese National Conservatory, Achkar shifted her focus to visual arts. She enrolled at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux-Arts and became a member associated with a group of young artists who considered themselves pioneers, a new generation that was determined to break with the artistic traditions of the past and move into new, freer forms of expression. Achkar’s career took off after she graduated from ALBA when she went to Paris to study on a scholarship granted by the French government. After concluding her studies, Achkar returned to Lebanon, where she taught painting at ALBA and the National Institute of Fine Arts of the Lebanese University from 1966 to 1988. Achkar was trained by Fernando Manetti and influenced by Georges Cyr, however, developed a personal style in line with abstract expressionism, characterized by the use of bold colors and strident yet delicate lines to convey a sense of the artist’s emotions and inner self. “When she paints, she is not alone, she responds to the requirements of the materials and colors that have a personality and a presence of their own. Painting responds to a desire for aesthetics. In the foundation of this relationship each detail is in dialogue with the whole as well as with a part, resembling a musical composition.” Faycal Sultan. l’Art au Liban 1880- 1975: Wonderfuleditions, Beirut, 2007, p 234.