Read this William Grimes obituary on the life of Saloua Raouda Choucair, one of the clutch of women abstract artists who were only recognized quite late in life. Like Carmen Herrera and Etel Adnan, Choucair worked compulsively for a lifetime without worldly reward until Jessica Morgan, now the director of Dia in New York, chanced upon her work and organized a retrospective at the Tate.
Beyond the compelling personal story, the obituary serves as a reminder for all who worry about the supply of art on the market that there remains a substantial amount of unrecognized art that needs the armature of institutional support to advance in value.
Here’s Grimes quoting her daughter:
“All the timings were wrong with my mother, so I’m not surprised this happened so late,” her daughter told The International Herald Tribune (now the international edition of The New York Times) in 2013. “She started with abstraction when people in Beirut were just discovering Impressionism. In the ’60s, no one was paying attention to her, and then when they started paying attention, the war started. Even if there was some good attention, something always went a little wrong.”
Saloua Raouda Choucair, Early Exponent of Abstract Arabian Art, Dies at 100 (The New York Times)
