Farid Aouad (Lebanese, 1924-1982)

Infamous for capturing scenes of strangers in the bars and cafés of Paris, Farid Aouad used his compositions to convey his own feelings of loneliness and solitude. In Silhouettes en Lumière an example from the artist's oeuvre that captures the artist's obsession with black and white before he shifted to use colour, anonymous silhouettes are drawn with nervous lines of figures congregating around a bar, as if ghosts of the city. Although seemingly full, the bar's eerie appearance as an amalgamation of histories and faint memories highlights the sense of isolation that Aouad felt and wished to impart to his viewers.