21 May 2009
BEIRUT: Helen Khal (nee Joseph), a former painting instructor at the American University of Beirut who was a renowned painter, author, and critic, died on May 20, of stroke at a hospital in Ajaltoun. Born in the US state of Pennsylvania in 1923, Khal was an American of Lebanese descent. She started her prolific painting career at the age of 21, and reluctantly set down her beloved paintbrush only a few hours before she died. She moved to Lebanon in 1946, studied at ALBA, and met and married a young Lebanese poet, Yusuf Al-Khal, whom she later divorced. In 1949 she studied at the Arts Students League in New York. In 1963, she established and directed Lebanon's first permanent art gallery, Gallery One.
Khal has authored several articles on art and culture for Lebanese and US publications. Khal contributed articles to The Daily Star from the late 1990s until 2004. She has also authored a book, "The Woman Artist in Lebanon," which was published in 1987. She taught at AUB between 1967 and 1976, and later up until her last days, worked as copyeditor of two AUB publications, the quarterly magazine, MainGate, and the monthly newsletter, AUB Bulletin Today.
Encouraged by the Lebanese artist Aref Rayess and others, Helen Khal held her first individual exhibition in 1960 in Galerie Alecco Saab in Beirut. Her other one-woman shows took place at Galerie Trois Feuilles d'Or, Beirut (1965); Galerie Manoug, Beirut (1968); at the First National Bank, Allentown, Pennsylvania (1969); in Kaslik, Lebanon (1970); at the Contact Art Gallery, Beirut (1972, 1974 and 1975) and at the Bolivar Gallery in Kingston, Jamaica in 1975. Her work also appeared in the Biennales of Alexandria and Sao Paulo.
Khal is survived by her two sons, Tarek and Jawad, both mathematicians, and a grandson. - The Daily Star
Copyright The Daily Star 2009.
