Aref Rayess

Paintings by El Rayess are relatively few in the auction market. In October 2007, Labyrinths of the Millenium was proposed at $30,000 – $35,000 and hammered at $37,000. One year later, H. T. M. (Human, Time and Machine) was offered for $60,000 – $80,000 and was sold at $62,500.

2004 – "Al Layl Al Tṭawīl Wa’al Kalimah" (The Long Night and The Word) OCLC Number: 64576609

2003 – "Al Ayyām Al Ramādīyah: Alwān, Aḥruf, Suwar" (The Gray Days: Colors, Letters, Pictures) Riad El Rayess Books – ISBN 9953211426 ISBN 9789953211428

2001 – A Dedication to his daughter "Hodourak Fi Ghiyab Al Thol" (Your presence in the absence of the shadow) Publishing house and ISBN not available.

2000 – "Matahat Jamila" (Beautiful Maze) Nawfal Publishing – ISBN not available.

1999 – A Selection of Interviews "Rehlah Dakhel al-Zat" (A journey within my self) Dar AlJadeed Publishing – ISBN not available.

1982 – One Hundred Years of Plastic Arts in Lebanon 1880–1980 Imprimerie Catholique sal, Araya, Lebanon – ISBN not available.

With the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War, El Rayess was one of the artists who interpreted the tragic events in art. Staying in Algiers, he produced in 1976 a series of etchings entitled The Road to Peace. This work gave its name to an exhibition Saleh Barakat curated in 2009 at the Beirut Art Center, encompassing Lebanese visual arts between 1975 and 1991. Apart from the etching series, oil paintings depicting the horror of war were featured in the exhibition. In these troubled times, El Rayess showed political involvement in creating a poster commemorating the assassination of the Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt.

1976 – "Tarik al Salam" (The Road to Peace) Illustration of the 1975 War in Lebanon OCLC Number: 41596994

1972 – A Manifesto by Rayess "Maa' Man, Wa Dud Man" (With Who, and Against Whom) Publishing house and ISBN not available due to its contents.

Rayess participated in many group shows including the biennales of São Paulo (1960) and Bagdad (1974); the Unesco exhibition in Montreal (1978); the Mall Galleries, London (1986) and the Salons of the Sursock Museum, Beirut (1961, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1968). He has held more than fifteen solo shows in Lebanon.

In the 1960s his painting evolved around Man and the Third World and in the early 1970s, he unexpectedly presented an exhibition related to whorehouses off Martyrs' Square, Beirut.

Internationally, his Individual exhibitions include: the Poliani Gallery, Rome (1959); Numero Gallery, Florence (1959); D'Arcy Gallery, New York; Excelsior Gallery, Mexico (1964); the Rodin Museum, Paris (1966); a retrospective of his works, 1957–1968, at the National Museum of Damascus (1969); Ornina Gallery, Damascus (1974), Gallery Rasim, Algeria (1976) and in Venezuela.

Aref El Rayess won several awards in Lebanon. These include: the Lebanese Ministry of National Education Award for the 1955 spring exhibition, the Unesco Prize for the Spring Salon of 1957, the Ministry of Public Works First and Second Prize for Sculpture (1963), the Sursock Museum Grand Prix de Sculpture (1965–66) for different works exhibited and their First Prize for Sculpture (1966–67) as well as the Ministry of Tourism First and Second Prizes (1966).

Born in Beirut, Aref Rayess started his career as a self-taught artist exhibiting for the first time in 1948. He lived in Africa for many years during which he traveled between Senegal and Paris. In Paris, he joined the studios of Fernand Léger, André Lhote, Marcel Marceau and Ossip Zadkine while studying at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. In 1957, he returned to Lebanon, but left again for Florence in 1959 with a scholarship from the Italian government. From 1960 to 1963, he lived in Rome where he went on studying and exhibiting. In 1963, he returned to Lebanon.

Aref El Rayess (or Aref Rayess) (25 October 1928 – 27 January 2005) was a Lebanese painter and sculptor.