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Louay Kayyali (Syria, 1934-1978) The Shoe Shine Boy (masih al-ahdhia) image 1

Louay Kayyali (Syria, 1934-1978) The Shoe Shine Boy (masih al-ahdhia) image 2

Lot 18^*

Louay Kayyali
(Syria, 1934-1978)
The Shoe Shine Boy (masih al-ahdhia)

Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art

13 November 2024, 14:00 GMT

London, New Bond Street

Sold for £76,600 inc. premium

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Louay Kayyali (Syria, 1934-1978)

The Shoe Shine Boy (masih al-ahdhia)
oil on panel, framed
signed "Louay Kayyali" and dated "1972" in Arabic (lower left), titled on the verso, executed in 1972
75 x 89.5cm (29 1/2 x 35 1/4in).

Footnotes

Provenance:
Property from a prestigious private collection
Acquired in Beirut, circa 1970s

Kayyali was born in Aleppo, Syria in 1934. He received an art scholarship in 1956 to study at Rome's Academy of Fine Arts and participated in numerous exhibitions and fairs during his time in Italy, including representing Syria along with Fateh Al Moudarres at the 1960 Venice Biennale. In 1961, Kayyali returned to Syria where he took up a professorship at the Damascus Higher Institute of Fine Arts. After the Arab defeat in the Six-Day War with Israel in 1967, Kayyali abandoned painting due to depression. In the early 1970s, he returned to painting and began producing numerous paintings depicting everyday people from the streets of Syria's such as newspaper sellers, shoe-shiners, and the characters depicted in the present works

The Shoe Shine Boy is a prime examples of Kayyali's mature period in which key characters from Syrian daily life merge to the forefront. In this body of work, Kayyali highlights the protagonist's struggle and vividly captures how political upheaval affected the Syrian population's demeanour, shaping a culture and society that led to poverty and societal marginalization. Kayyali conveys a mixture of empathetic admiration and sad affection for his poor but noble subject matters

This mesmerizing portrait condensing all minor detail articulates the softness and vulnerability of Kayyal's subject. Melancholy, resignation and solitude best characterise much of Kayyali's work after the 1967 war and the sentiments of political failure in Syria and the Arab world in general. His paintings externalized the pressing humanitarian and political issues that surrounded him. Kayyali's powerful depictions of ordinary people are characterized by strong fluid lines that define the figures and the absence of extraneous detail.

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- Modern & Contemporary Middle Eastern Art