THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Arthur Lubo
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| Ficre Ghebreyesus, “Solitary Boat in Red and Blue,” circa 2002-07, one of 700 paintings the artist — who was better known as a chef — left when he died. It is in a show of his work online at Galerie Lelong.Credit...The Estate of Ficre Ghebreyesus; via Galerie Lelong & Co., New York |
Ficre Ghebreyesus had no art gallery representation during his lifetime. Now his widow is working with Galerie Lelong in New York to show the work that summed up his search for identity. Mixing memories of his East African childhood with his day-to-day life as a husband and father in New Haven, Conn., Ficre Ghebreyesus conjured up an imaginary space of his own. He created this multilayered world in his studio, where, after his sudden death at 50 in 2012, he left behind more than 700 paintings and several hundred works on paper. And he performed a similar magic in the popular Caffe Adulis, where he earned his living by cooking hybrid recipes that drew on the culinary heritage of his native Eritrea and neighboring Ethiopia. Mr. Ghebreyesus very rarely exhibited his paintings publicly. [
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| Ficre Ghebreyesus in 2000 at Caffe Adulis in New Haven, where he introduced diners to the cuisine of his native Eritrea. Many learned only after his death that he was a painter, too. Like his cooking, his art was “something remembered, something invented,” said his widow, the poet Elizabeth Alexander.Credit...Hiroyuki Ito/Getty Images |
