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Dorothy Salhab Kazemi (1942-1990) was the pioneer of modern art ceramics in Lebanon. Growing up she resided between Tripoli and Beirut, Lebanon. During the political upheaval of 1958, she joined Broumana High School where Quacker values of simplicity and equality left a deep lasting impression on her and a basis of principles of how she would go on to live her life. She started her university education at the Beirut College for Women (known today as LAU- Lebanese American University) before she moved to the American University of Beirut (AUB) where she graduated with a degree in English Literature in 1963. Simultaneously she indulged in several Fine Arts courses offered at both universities.

On a student trip to Copenhagen, Denmark, she was exposed and captivated by Modern Ceramic Art as developed by the Scandinavians. She had always love earthenware pottery traditionally used in Lebanese households, especially at her grandmother’s in her native village Roumieh, Mount Lebanon. After graduating from AUB, she moved to Denmark in 1965 to pursue her passion for ceramic art. She learnt Danish and trained under the renowned Danish ceramist, Gutte Eriksen, from whom she adopted the skills of throwing, glazing, and firing. In 1968, she moved with her husband Shams Kazemi, to Glasgow, Scotland, where she taught ceramics and held her first exhibition. In 1971, She settled back in Beirut to establish the first Ceramics Department in Lebanon at the BCW and set up her own workshop/atelier at her grandmother’s house in Roumieh. As she kneaded the clay, kicked her wheel, glazed and fired her pots as she looked at the Mediterreanean sea, the red tiled roofs and the snow-covered mountains of Mount Sannine.

She used Lebanese clay and worked with stoneware; a technique never yet used in Lebanon. She was the only ceramist to fire Lebanese clay at a temperature as high as 1250-1500 Celsius. During her stay in Lebanon, she participated in five Franco-Syrian archaeological excavations in Mayadeen Rahba in Syria. It was an opportunity to further deepen her knowledge of Islamic ceramics. After the Lebanese civil war broke out in 1975, Dorothy and her diplomat husband moved to Geneva, Switzerland. She lived between Geneva and Verteillac in the Dordogne, France, where she started another workshop and worked until her death in 1990.