Saloua Raouda Choucair is famous in Lebanon for bringing abstraction to the Middle East. A rare female voice in the Beirut art scene from the 1940s onwards, she has spent her career combining western abstraction with the traditions of Islamic design. But, working through civil war and ongoing unrest in Lebanon, she remains virtually unknown outside her own country.
This pioneer is belatedly recognised with her first major museum show. As her interlocking sculptures, textiles and paintings, both abstract and figurative, go on display at Tate Modern, we travel to Beirut to meet the artist's daughter at the apartment where Choucair's work started its journey.
