Juliana Seraphim (Palestinian, b. 1934)

The images in my paintings come from deep within me: they are surreal and unexplainable. Consciously I want to portray a woman's world and how important love is to a woman. Few men understand the quality of love that a woman seeks. I try to show them.
(Juliana Seraphim quoted in H. Khal, The woman artist in Lebanon, Beirut University College 1987, p. 71).

This rare finding by female Palestinian artist Juliana Seraphim, whose family had fled Palestine in 1948, comes from the prestigious collection of H.E. Camille Aboussouan (1919-2013), former ambassador of Lebanon to UNESCO. An esteemed lawyer, writer and diplomat, Aboussouan was awarded the Prize of the Académie Franaise. Furthermore, he was the first to translate Khalil Gibran's celebrated book The Prophet in 1956, he founded the cultural publication Les Cahiers de l'Est in Beirut in 1945 and was the curator of the famed Sursock Museum, Beirut, from 1961 to 1978.