Jul 27, 2023, 6 PM – 7 PM

Walkthrough: A Greater Beauty in Arabic and English

Installation View, *A Greater Beauty: The Drawings of Kahlil Gibran*, The Drawing Center, New York. June 2 - September 10, 2023. Photo: Daniel Terna

Join us in-person at The Drawing Center for a bilingual walkthrough presented in Arabic (Egyptian Dialect) and English with Isabella Kapur, Curatorial Associate and Jovanna Abdou, Curatorial Intern on the exhibition A Greater Beauty: The Drawings of Kahlil Gibran

يوم الخميس ٢٧ يوليو من ٦ حتي ٧ مساء تعالوا وانضموا إلينا في جولة باللغتين العربية والإنجليزية مع إيزابلا كابور منسقة تنظيم المعارض، وجوفانا عبدة متدربة على تنظيم وتنسيق المعرض، تعالوا وانضموا لنا في معرض من أعظم واجمل رسومات الفنان خليل جبران

Jovanna Abdou

Curatorial Intern
Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran was born Jubrān Khalīl Jubrān in Ottoman-ruled Bsharri in 1883 to a Maronite Christian family. In 1895, Gibran’s mother moved him, his half-brother, and two younger sisters to Boston, where she worked as a pack peddler, leaving Gibran’s father in Lebanon. Displaying an aptitude for the arts at an early age, Kahlil Gibran was supported in his endeavors by key mentors throughout his life. As a teenager, Gibran met photographer, publisher, and philanthropist Fred Holland Day and poet Josephine Preston Peabody, both of whom provided Gibran with his entrance into Boston’s creative community. Day hosted the first solo exhibition of Gibran’s drawings in 1904 in his Boston photo studio shortly after Gibran returned from Beirut, where he attended college. At that event, Gibran met Mary Haskell, who would become a lifelong friend (there is speculation that the two were also romantically involved) and benefactor to Gibran, paying for him to attend the Academie Julian art school in Paris from 1908 to 1910. While in Paris, Gibran became involved with Syrian political dissidents, whose activities he continued to support upon his return to the United States. Gibran’s artwork was shown in 1914 at Montross Gallery and in 1917 at the galleries of M. Knoedler & Co, both in New York. In 1923, Gibran published his best-known written work The Prophet, an anthology of poems that captured the attention of the world and eventually made Gibran the best-selling American poet of the twentieth century. On April 10, 1931, at the age of forty-eight, Gibran died of liver disease in his home on West 10th Street in New York City. He was buried in Bsharri on the grounds of what is now the Gibran Museum.
Isabella Kapur

Education and Community Programs at The Drawing Center are made possible by the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc. Major support is provided by the Evelyn Toll Family Foundation and the LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation. Additional support is provided by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, the Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, the Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation, and the M&T Charitable Foundation.