Louay Kayali

Louay Kayali was born in 1934 in Aleppo, Syria. Kayali was a Syrian modern fine artist. He started painting at the age of 11 and held his first solo exhibition aged 18 years-old at his school. In 1956, he was granted a scholarship to study at the Accademia Di Bella Arti in Rome & represented Syria – alongside Fateh Moudarres – at the Venice Biennale (1960).

Kayali secured a foothold in depicting the struggles & turmoil of the underprivileged Arab masses resulted by political failures & corruption. He pioneered painting on masonite chipboard to symbolise the worn-out nature of the depicted figures’ lives. 

The Syrian artist sank into deep depression following the Arab defeat in the Arab-Israeli War in 1967 & stopped painting till the early 1970s. Kayali died tragically in a house-burn incident that had been suspicioned as suicide in 1978.