Fadel Makaroff  

Hamate (Lebanon), 1910-1945

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Makaroff Fadel is a Greek Orthodox painter who created a sensitive painting style with undertones of sadness. He was at the margins of Lebanese society and of his cultural environment, crossed by intense personal and political rivalries.

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He was a student of César Gemayel and studied painting in Rome, where he was a student of Siviero, and then taught painting at the College de la Sagesse on his return to Beirut. He was tubercular and had to return to his home village. He came back from Italy with a technique derived from 1920s realism he triturated the sensation in front of the canvas, in the manner of perceiving and rendering it. The Italian teaching, at that time, focused first on an exercise in sensitivity of the texture and color. 

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Fadel is interesting for the way in which a Greek Orthodox could approach painting and Italy in the face-to-face between Latin and Byzantine sensibilities. He died in Hamate in 1945.