Untitled

Brightly coloured, with seasonal, summery overtones, Helen Khal’s painting of a potted plant is fresh and uplifting, with the full blooms in graduated shades of vibrant red and pastel pinks against a sunshine-yellow, sky-blue and meadow-green background hinting at the prospect of happy times and hope for the future. Slightly titled, the angle of the blue pot gives this still-life scene an element of movement, reminding us of the summer ‘rush’ and heady days that the warmer months can bring with them.

Born in 1923 in Pennsylvania, Helen Khal was of Lebanese descent. She studied at both the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) in Beirut and at the Art Students League in New York. Throughout her life, she divided her time between the US and Lebanon. Khal held her first solo show in Galerie Alecco Saab in Beirut in 1960 and, three years later, set up Gallery One, Lebanon’s first permanent art gallery. Other solo exhibitions followed in Beirut and abroad. She also took part in the Biennales held in Alexandria and Sao Paolo. Khal wrote and lectured on art, working as an art critic in Lebanon and abroad for several years and teaching at AUB. During her years in the US, she was publications consultant to the Jordan Information Bureau. She also had a book titled ‘The Woman Artist in Lebanon’ published in 1987. Khal died in 2009.