Nicolas Sursock Museum

About Nicolas Sursock Museum

Modern art and contemporary art museum in Beirut, Lebanon

The Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock Museum, known as the Sursock Palace, is a modern and contemporary art museum on Rue Sursock in the Rmeil district of Achrafieh, on a hill above Beirut. The Beirut aristocrat Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock built the villa in 1912 and asked in his will that it become a museum; on his death in 1952 he left it to the city. From 1953 to 1957 it served as a presidential guesthouse for visiting heads of state, and the museum opened in 1961 with an exhibition of contemporary Lebanese artists, a milestone in Beirut's cultural life. The building is one of the finest examples of early 20th-century Lebanese architecture, mixing Italianate, especially Venetian, and Ottoman influences: a white façade with arched stained-glass windows, a double marble staircase, and interiors of carved wood and oriental decoration, including the Arab Salon. It is one of the few villas of its period left in Beirut. The museum has staged more than a hundred exhibitions of Lebanese and international artists and holds a permanent collection of paintings, sculpture and prints, with a library and photographic archive. It was heavily damaged in the Beirut port explosion of August 2020, then restored and reopened.

Where:

Beirut, Lebanon