Untitled, 1968, India ink on paper, 18 x 24 cm. Courtesy of the Saradar Collection.
For more than eight decades, Laure Ghorayeb lived through lines of ink and words. Born in 1931 in Deir El Qamar (“the Monastery of the Moon”), she began drawing as a schoolgirl at the Sœurs Saint-Joseph de l’Apparition, using black pencils to fill the colorless illustrations of her textbooks. That early encounter with the absence of color would forever shape her artistic language. From the very early stages, her world unfolded in black and white. But this choice was less a limitation than a declaration of fidelity to the essentials: line, light, and life.
Her early years were marked by a disciplined curiosity. In 1955, while working as a researcher at Lebanon’s Ministry of Education, Ghorayeb’s colleague, none other than renowned painter and calligrapher Said Akl, encouraged her to pursue art and introduced her to the poetic potential of Arabic text. During that same period, Ghorayeb was also writing poetry in French, publishing her first collection, Noir Les Bleus (Black…the Blues), in 1960 – a book of free verse illustrated with her own miniature ink drawings. Poetry and image soon became indistinguishable in her work; she drew as she wrote and wrote as she drew.
Ten Years Already, 1984, India ink on paper, 70 x 50 cm. Courtesy of the British Museum Collection
Self-portrait, Backwards, 2000, India ink on paper, 100 × 70 cm. Courtesy of the Saradar Collection.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, Ghorayeb became one of Beirut’s most well-known free poetry figures – joining the likes of Ounsi El-Haj and Youssef El Khal – and incisive art critics. She wrote for L’Orient, Le Jour, and An Nahar – where she would remain for fifty years – building a reputation for sharp, honest commentary that made her both respected and feared in the city’s booming art scene. Her criticism, like her drawings, was personal and unflinching. She described exhibitions as lived experiences, transforming observation into dialogue.
As an artist, Ghorayeb developed a language of fine, interlaced lines rendered in India ink. Her compositions – dense, intricate, and often no larger than a notebook page – featured overlapping figures, symbols, and handwritten phrases. They were both imagery and diary infused with humor, intimacy, and rebellion. Her self-portrait recurred throughout her work, alongside depictions of her husband, Lebanese actor Antoine Kerbaj, and scenes from daily life, all filtered through a mixture of irony, tenderness, and protest.
In 1967, she was awarded a prize at the Paris Biennial for The Couple. That drawing disappeared during the Lebanese civil war, unlike Ghorayeb’s voice, which stubbornly bore witness to Lebanon’s modern history. Between 1975 and 1985, she produced Témoignages, a series of ink works chronicling the civil war’s toll. Decades later, during the 2006 Israeli assault on Lebanon, she kept an illustrated diary titled 33 Days, sketching each day’s chaos with remarkable immediacy and posting the drawings on her blog.
You and Me–Double Self-portrait, 2008, India ink on paper.
© Estate of Laure Ghorayeb.
La reconstruction. La réconciliation. Le retrait (1990-2005) – Part 1 of triptych Le Liban d’après-guerre, 2020, India ink on paper, 150 × 100 cm. © Estate of Laure Ghorayeb
Over time, Ghorayeb’s practice expanded into collaboration, most notably with her son, artist, musician, and illustrator Mazen Kerbaj. Between 2001 and 2015, they exhibited together three times and co-authored L’Abécédaire de Laure Ghorayeb et Mazen Kerbaj, a visual dialogue of words and images. Their 2019 exhibition, Correspondances, held at the Sursock Museum, captured the essence of their relationship: Laure’s delicate webs of ink entwined with Mazen’s bold, cartoon-like silhouettes.
By the time of her passing in 2023, Laure Ghorayeb had spent over 80 years creating. Her art, at once autobiographical and universal, bridged poetry, drawing, and criticism. She turned black and white into forever living matter.