Rita Asfour
1933 – 2021
Recognition by Academia
“Rita Asfour’s legacy will be that of an enabled artist who never gave up on doing it – Her Way! Rita’s success is that she is not driven by monetary success or notoriety. Rita is first and foremost a free and curious spirit.”
Dr. Robert Tracy, Ph.D., College of Fine Arts
“Rita Asfour’s work embodies the spirit of Vegas glamour, in the same way Toulouse Lautrec captured the allure of the Moulin Rouge in 19th century Paris.”
Professor Sean Clark, College of Fine Arts
“When you have a visionary brilliant artist like Rita Asfour, she will find the right medium to express her ideas.”
Dr. Nancy J. Uscher, Ph.D., College of Fine Arts
About
Rita Asfour was a lifelong painter. She was known for her colorful aesthetic paintings of the human figure. Rita projected life and movement in the strength in her compositions. Feminine mystique and sensuality were her trademark. She was born In Egypt, where her high school education was in a French school, and her college education was at the Italian Art Institute Leonardo Da Vinci, from which she earned a Bachelor of Art degree in 1959. After graduation her first job was in Beirut, Lebanon. She started as an illustrator and ended being the art director of a weekly magazine. Rita worked in Beirut for five years after which she immigrated to the United States in 1965.
Los Angeles was her home for the next seventeen years. She started as a contract employee at Universal City Tours, and within five years opened her own art gallery in Beverly Hills. Malibu was her domicile for the next thirty years, where she attained all the artistic freedom she dreamt of, and where she became very prolific and creative. Rita led a private life and shied away from publicity. She painted for herself.
At the age of seventy-nine, in 2012, Rita retired in Las Vegas, where she was married in 1965. But she was so awed with a spectacular Las Vegas showgirls review that she started a collection of Showgirl paintings. Academia and Public Television honored her with an exhibition and a documentary for the vibrant way in which she portrayed showgirls. In 2016, the University of Nevada exhibited Rita’s new paintings on campus for six months. In 2017, PBS aired a half-hour documentary about Rita’s long artistic career. Rita continued to paint up until 2021, when she accidentally broke a leg and passed away on June 29, 2021.
