Wahbi al-Hariri-Rifai

Wahbi al-Hariri-Rifai was a Syrian American artist who has often been called "the last of the classicists". He was born in 1914 in Aleppo, Syria, to a prominent and noble family. He showed artistic talent from a young age and traveled to Italy in 1932 to study art at the Reale Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. He also studied archaeology and preservation at the Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell'Arte and participated in archaeological research and study in Greece. He was influenced by the classical tradition of art and architecture and developed a style that combined realism, luminism, and classicism. He married Widad Marachi, a Syrian American poet and translator, in 1944 and they had five children. He moved to Paris in 1946 and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and the École du Louvre. He returned to Syria in 1954 and established his own architectural firm. He designed many buildings and monuments in Syria and other Arab countries, such as the National Museum of Aleppo, the Syrian pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and the King Faisal Mosque in Riyadh. He was also an avid explorer and traveler and visited many historical and cultural sites in the Middle East and beyond. He wrote several books and articles on art, architecture, archaeology, and history, such as The Art of Syria, The Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, and The Spiritual Edifices of Islam. He was also a mentor and teacher to many young Arab artists and contributed to the development of the plastic arts movement in the Levant. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1989 and moved back to Aleppo, where he spent the last years of his life. He continued to create art until his death in 1994. He left behind a rich and diverse legacy of artistic and intellectual achievements that have been recognized and praised internationally.