Les musicales (2016) Schilderij door Stelio Scamanga

Stelio SCAMANGA is a Lebanese artist, painter, cultural critic, Greek of origin, born in 1934.

He started painting at the age of 13. In 1960, he graduated from the American University of Beirut (Architecture department), at the same time his first personal exhibition was held at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut.

In 1962, he was part of the first artist collective to exhibit at the opening of Galerie One in Beirut. With and among the members of this collective: Yvette Sargologo, Nadia Saikali, Mounir Najm, Assem Stetie, Helen Khal and Mohamad Sakr. Numerous group exhibitions followed in the 1960s-1970s, in collaboration with Mounir Najem, Said Akl, Helen Khal, Wajih Nahlé, and Mohammed Melehi, famous artists from the Arab world.

From 1965, Stelio Scamanga resolutely placed his mark and influence on the contemporary Lebanese artistic panorama. He was an integral part of the cultural scene and the emerging artistic movement of the Levant.

Several of his paintings are still part of the permanent collection of Sursock Museum in Beyrouth. In 1964, Stelio Scamanga wrote the manifest “Towards a new space: abstract perspective”

.Scamanga proposed a theory of spatial representation in two dimensions, contrary to the three-dimensional Western definition. Stelio Scamanga, along with Mounir Najem and Adel Saghir, ended up representing what the artist and critic Samir Sayegh called “ oriental abstraction” in 1971. 

His works produced during this period and entitled “Composition and “Arabesques", remain today without a doubt, classic works of oriental abstraction. Whose major influence has left its mark until today. At the same time, he founded and co-directed the architectural office “Group 5” in Beirut until 1975.

In 1976, the war destroying Beirut forced him to look for other roots that he would transcend throughout his life. Stelio Scamanga left Lebanon for Switzerland then France, exhibiting between New York, Paris, Geneva, Stockholm and Zurich. He founded the design office "Art And Design Consultants" in Geneva. 

His activity as an architect and art consultant led him to direct, between 1980 and 1995, important works aimed at integrating Arab artists in several major public buildings in Saudi Arabia. Among these artists: Dia Azzawi, Nja Mahdaoui.

At the same time, Scamanga continued to paint, and exhibited several times in Germany at the Galerie Kröner in Munich and Düsseldorf. As well as in New York at the Reece Gallery, and numerous International fairs.

The last years of his work reveal canvases painted with mixed techniques, where wax intimately mixed with paint creates volumes and reliefs in a red material with multiple reflections. Stelio Scamanga never stopped painting, campaigning for an abstraction without psychological filter or narrative, until his last days.

• Nationaliteit: FRANKRIJK
• Geboortedatum : 1934
• Artistieke domeinen: Werken van professionele kunstenaars,
• Groepen: Professionele artiest Hedendaagse Franse Kunstenaars