The late Lebanese artist Higgate Callland, famous for the body’s organs, had to wait until he was 33 years old to follow the desire to become a painter. Born in Beirut in 1931 in a political, supporter of the Latin freedom, it was expected that they would marry and their children would be born (which he has married to his father’s political opponent, and he has married both lovers) and will usually play the role of a cosmopolitan wife. Being an artist? Impossible, he thought. But after the death of his father, the first president of Lebanon, a poor Lebanese president, saw him opening for a new type of life. He enrolled at the US University in Beirut, the paint brush in his hand, and he was bent. He had his first painting, 1964 Red sun, A canvas was wet in both grief and craving, the year he died of cancer.
“He always said that you do not ask for freedom, you take it. In Paris, and later in Venice, California, where he lived from the late 1980s to 2013, the work he did, he was suffering from a wonderful sentiment. The search was not far off.
Hugget Callland, free title, 1968-1970, oil on canvas, 40 3/8 x 28 1/4 in. H Hugget Calland State.Photo: Courtesy Salon 94 and Free.
