Rita Asfour

Rita continued to paint until 2021. She died on June 29, 2021, after an accident that caused a broken leg.

She painted showgirls from that moment on, until 2021 when she left a half-finished painting on her easel.

Later in 2021, Rita was featured in a one-hour Vegas PBS documentary about showgirls, titled, “The Showgirl: A Las Vegas Icon.”

A paint brush was in her hand for eighty years, from age eight until eighty-eight. Rita continued to paint until two months before she died on June 29, 2021, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In 2020, Rita donated Cash and prints to PBS in Las Vegas.

Professor Sean Clark, Associate Dean, College of Fine Arts, UNLV, said, “Rita Asfour’s work embodies the spirit of Vegas glamour, in the same way Toulouse Lautrec captured the allure of the Moulin Rouge in 19th century Paris.”

One year later, in 2017, Public Television aired a half-hour documentary about Rita’s life-long journey in the art world.

In 2017, PBS in Las Vegas aired a half-hour documentary about Rita’s life, titled, “Rita Asfour: Art Her Way.”

In August 2016 the University of Nevada in Las Vegas had a six-month exhibition of Rita’s showgirl paintings.

In 2016, Dr. Robert Tracy, from the department of Fine Arts at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, heard about Rita living in Las Vegas and painting Las Vegas showgirls. He went to her house, carefully examined the paintings, and was impressed with the way she portrayed the dancers floating in air. He came back, interviewed Rita again, and noted that she had a large collection of ballet dancers. It was then that he decided to curate Rita’s collections and have an exhibit for her showgirl and ballerina dancers on the university campus.

In 2012, at the age of seventy-nine, Rita retired in Las Vegas. But went back to painting after seeing a spectacular Las Vegas showgirls review. The University of Nevada exhibited her new paintings in 2016. Public Television in 2017 aired a half-hour documentary about her long artistic career.

Rita retired in Las Vegas in 2012, to relax in its world of entertainment, and to go back to where she was married in 1965.

Rita painted twelve images of Malibu landmarks, put them in a 2006 calendar that she printed and sold, then donated all the proceeds to the Los Angeles County Sherriff’s Office.

In 2006, Rita donated all the proceeds from her 2006 Malibu Landmarks Calendar to the Sherriff’s Department in Malibu.

In 2003, Rita donated paintings and prints to the Leukemia Society in Pittsburgh.

In 1991, Rita had a show at Lumina Art Gallery, in Trenton, New Jersey. That gallery was owned by John Salvo, who later became manager of the Martin Lawrence Galleries in Soho, New York. John bought and owns two of Rita’s paintings

Art Expo 1981 in San Francisco was the first of many Art Expos in which she exhibited and sold her paintings.

In 1980, Rita made a dozen sculptures in plaster, and a few were cast in paper. She made only one in bronze but did not continue because the process was too complicated and involved too many people.

In 1971, Rita opened her own art gallery, Galerie Camille, on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills. Besides selling her paintings, she was commissioned portraits of Tricia Nixon, Otis Chandler, and others.

In 1969, Rita attended several classes at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California.

In 1969, she went to Tahiti, where she spent time in the museum of Paul Gaugin. She studied his originals very closely, especially his free lines and colors.

In the United States in 1968, she took private lessons from Samuel Markitante (1887-1975), who was a French artist, living in Santa Monica, California. His specialty was Landscapes with thick layers of paint on board to give a three-dimensional effect.

Whenever she could, she would buy paint and canvas to start a new portfolio. Three years later, in 1968, she presented a dozen paintings to W&J Sloane in Beverly Hills, which they accepted on consignment. Collectors included Donna Reed and Ella Fitzgerald.

Rita immigrated to the United States in 1965 and found a job in Los Angeles at Universal Studio Tours, sketching pastel portraits of visiting tourists. Another major event that same year was her marriage to an aerospace engineer, Jeffrey Asfour.

Rita immigrated to the United States in 1965. She went to California, where she easily found a job at Universal City Studio Tours, sketching pastel portraits of tourists, for $15 each.

Rita never wanted to get married or have children. But an aerospace engineer changed her mind,  after which they were married in November 1965, at the Tropicana Hotel, Las Vegas. And in 1973 she gave birth to one child named Amber.

In 1965, Rita donated thirty paintings to the City of Hope in Los Angeles.

In Egypt, her high school education was in a French school. In 1959, she received a BA from the Italian Art Institute Leonardo Da Vinci.

After finishing high school, Rita spent six years studying art at Leonardo da Vinci's Scuola Internazionale Italiana, from where she graduated in 1959 with a BA.

In the middle of World War II, in 1941, Hitler bombed Cairo trying to gain access to the Suez Canal. Rita was then eight years old. She remembers the air raids and crying under her bed. In school, her friends sketched bombs falling, but she painted flowers and happy faces. That was when she started drawing to express herself.

Rita Asfour (February 9, 1933 – June 29, 2021) was an American modern artist. She was known for her colorful aesthetic paintings of the human figure. Rita projected life and movement by the strength of her compositions. Feminine mystique and sensuality were her trademark.

Rita Asfour was born on February 9, 1933, in Cairo, Egypt. Her maiden name is Markrit Thomassian.

Her Armenian father, Kaspar Thomassian, was born in Turkey in 1901. Her Syrian mother, Gamila Khoury, was born in Aleppo, Syria in 1905. Her parents escaped the holocaust and ravages of World War I and ended refugees down sought in Egypt where Rita was born.