Modernism in the Middle East and Arab World
Exploring modernity and its intellectual trends in the Middle East is a very fitting endeavour, as ‘Middle East’ itself is a ‘modern’ term which has…
Exploring modernity and its intellectual trends in the Middle East is a very fitting endeavour, as ‘Middle East’ itself is a ‘modern’ term which has…
The painter Elias Zayyat (born Damascus, Syria, 1935) has played a leading role in developing a Syrian modern art pedagogy and analysis of Syrian visual…
Nazir Nabaa, a respected Syrian painter, made his greatest contributions to Arab modern art in the 1960s and 1970s, when he contributed to the graphic…
Born in Damascus, the Syrian painter Marwan Kassab Bachi, who often goes by only the name Marwan, began his career in Damascus before immigrating to…
Taheya Halim was an artist who began her arts education as a student of the Syrian artist Youssef Taraboulsi. In 1943, she began working as…
Louay Kayyali was one of the leading painters of the emergent Syrian art scene during the 1960s and 1970s. His most admired works depict individual laborers…
Muhammad Maghut, a Syrian poet born in Salamiya, is widely credited with introducing free-verse into Arabic poetry. He published his first collection, Huzn fi daw’…
Born in Damascus in 1931, Zakariyya Tāmir (Arabic زكريا تامر also transliterated Zakaria Tamer) is a renowned Syrian short-story writer, columnist, and the author of…
Nizar Qabbani (1923–98) was born in Damascus, Syria, into a merchant family. He studied law at Damascus University and then entered the Syrian diplomatic service,…
Saadallah Wannus, Syria’s best known and most respected contemporary playwright, was born in Tartous province. His plays were deeply critical of Arab power structures and…
Fateh al-Moudarres is considered a leader among Syria’s generation of modernist painters born in the 1920s. Because of his early participation in literary salons, his…
Walīd Ikhlāṣī has become known as one of Syria’s most productive dramatists and novelists. Since his first short story collection in 1963 he has produced…
Mahmoud Hammad, born in Jarabulus, Syria, was among the first Arab artists to adopt the letterforms of the Arabic language as a basis for modern…
Butrus Al-Bustani is known as the “father of the Arabic Renaissance” and was a leading pioneer of the Al-Nahda (النهضه) or cultural awakening. Al-Bustani sought…
Abdelké was born in Qameshli, Syria, in 1951. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus in 1976. Politically active as a member…
Al-Jaafari was one of the first painters in Syria to achieve recognition as a professional artist. Pursuing a semi-romantic realist style for the whole of…
Leila Nseir was one of the first women artists in Syria to achieve institutional recognition during the national art movement. In 1961 she traveled to…
Madiha Umar was the first Iraqi woman to receive a governmental scholarship to travel to Europe, where she officially studied education but also began art…
Ṣalat al-Fann al-Ḥadīth al-fiĀlamı (Gallery of International Modern Art, or Art Moderne International (AMI)) was the first private art gallery in Syria. Launched by brothers…
‘Abd al Salām Al-‘Ujaylī was one of the most productive and versatile literary figures in twentieth-century Syria. His experiences both as a medical doctor and…
Avot Yeshurun was a renowned Hebrew poet who remained split between two cities throughout his life: his childhood village Krasnistav and the city of Tel-Aviv,…
Jurjī Zaydān was a Lebanese novelist, journalist, and scholar of the Nahḍa (‘awakening’), an intellectual current of the long nineteenth century for the renewal of…
Nāṣīf al-Yāzijī was a Lebanese writer and philologist who contributed to the Nahḍa (‘awakening’), an intellectual current in the long nineteenth century for the renewal…
Yūsuf al-Khāl was a Lebanese poet and writer, born in 1917 in Syria. He graduated in 1944 from the Philosophy Department at the American University…