Andrée Sfeir-Semler (born in Beirut, Lebanon) is an art historian and gallery owner who founded her eponymous gallery in 1985 in Germany. Since 2003, Sfeir-Semler Gallery has focused on contemporary art from the Arab World, opening its doors in Beirut in 2005 in a 1400 m2 factory space in the harbor area. The gallery represents artists with highly relevant works, often expressing a sense of urgency, that record realities of regions that have been in turmoil for the best part of the last century, and that have been on the outskirts of the traditional art centers.

 

Andrée Sfeir-Semler studied fine art and film at the American University of Beirut. In 1975 she was awarded the DAAD German Academic Exchange Service scholarship, continuing her studies in art history at the Sorbonne with Pierre Bourdieu and at the universities of Munich, Bielefeld with Wolfgang Mager & Juergen Kocka where she earned her PhD with a thesis entitled (The Painter at the Paris Salon: 1791-1880).

 

She can be credited with opening the first white cube exhibition space in the Middle East (Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut) and for launching internationally the careers of several highly regarded artists such as Etel Adnan, Mounira Al Solh, Yto Barrada, Walid Raad, Marwan Rechmaoui, Rabih Mroué, Wael Shawky, Akram Zaatari.