Lebanese modernist painter Samia Osseiran Junblatt dies at 80

Samia Osseiran Junblatt, a modernist painter from Lebanon, has passed away. Her artistic style fused Western abstraction with Eastern elements, particularly influenced by her journey to Japan, which inspired her to explore figuration and Ukiyo-e art. Her paintings often depicted line-drawn figures in various states of emotion, symbolizing personal grief and Lebanon's tumultuous past. The sun was a prominent theme, exemplified by her work 'Sunset' (1968), which will be showcased at the 2024 Venice Biennale, ominously hovering over a walled corridor. Born in Saida to Adel Osseiran, a key figure in the establishment of the Lebanese Republic and former Speaker of Parliament, she received her BA from Beirut College for Women in 1965 and an MFA from the Pius XII Institute in Florence in 1967. From 1971 to 1973, she taught at BUC (now Lebanese American University) and studied graphic art at the University of Fine Arts in Tokyo in 1974. In 1977, she returned to Saida and established Artisana of Saida and South Lebanon, an organization dedicated to supporting women artists, which continues to function today.