His Excellency the President of the Republic and Mrs. Chamoun opened, on the afternoon of the twenty-second of last January, in the halls of the UNESCO Palace, the Sixth Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture. The exhibition was organized by the head of the Fine Arts section in the Ministry, Mr. Fouad Haddad, with the assistance of a committee appointed by the Ministry of Education and Fine Arts.

It is worth mentioning that among the hundred and four artists who took part in the exhibition — all of them either Lebanese or resident in Lebanon — were thirty-five women artists, professional and amateur, that is, at the rate of one third of the total; and this proportion, if it indicates anything, indicates awareness and an artistic renaissance in our women's circles, which is assuredly among the signs of progress and flourishing.

We shall bring our readers a detailed reportage on the exhibition in the coming issue.

At the Ministry's banquet: Mesdames Chamoun, Tabet, and Angelopoulo

On the occasion of the Sixth Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, and in honor of the exhibition committee and the artists who won the prizes and decorations, the Ministry of National Education and Fine Arts gave a dinner banquet on the evening of Friday, the twenty-fourth of last January, at the Bristol Hotel; it was attended by ... Mrs. Zalfa Chamoun, His Excellency the Prime Minister Sami al-Solh, and a gathering of artists and art critics. At the end of the banquet, His Excellency the Minister of Education delivered a gracious address in which he saluted the artistic renaissance, and also saluted the President's lady for the effective solicitude she shows toward artistic projects. And the artists

passed a pleasant interval of evening conversation, during which the President's lady moved from circle to circle, talking of matters of art.

At the invitation of the arts section of the Ministry of National Education and Fine Arts, Monsieur Hubert Guittat, curator of the Rouen museum in France and a member of the exhibition committee, delivered a lecture in French on 'The Most Important Stages in the History of Painting,' at half past six on the evening of Tuesday, January 28, in the lecture hall of the Ministry of National Education, the Chartouni Building, Sheikh Bechara el-Khoury Street.

On the eighth of this past January the Syrian Arab Women's Union gave a grand reception at the Orient Club in honor of the delegations to the Asian-African Solidarity Conference held in Cairo, in whose work the Syrian Arab Women's Union took part, represented in the person of Miss Amal al-Jazairi. The delegations reached Damascus at noon that day, on a visit of several days at the official invitation of the Syrian government.

The gathering included the ministers, the high official personalities, the Arab and foreign diplomatic corps, a large number of deputies and men of thought, letters, and the press, and a company of the gracious ladies and young ladies of Damascus.

When the guests were all assembled, Mrs. Rima Kurd Ali al-Azmeh rose and delivered the address of the Women's Union. She welcomed the members of the Asian and African delegations, foremost among them Mrs. Rameshwari Nehru, leader of the women's movement in India, and spoke of the brilliant results achieved by the Conference of the Solidarity of the Asian and African Peoples, which drew its inspiration from the resolutions of the Bandung Conference; and she linked it with the General Arab Women's Union Congress held in September 1957 in Damascus, showing that its recommendations too were drawn from the spirit of the immortal Bandung Conference.

Mrs. Azmeh pointed to the role of the leading women of the women's movement in the greater Arab world, and to their blessed struggle to raise the level of Arab society and to strengthen cooperation and