SAID TAHSIN
Said Tahsin is a Syrian modern painter of the early 20th century (1904-1985). Self-taught, he founded a painting teaching school in Beirut (1925-1928) and was later nominated as the painting teacher at the University College in Bagdad (1934-1941). Returning to Syria and already famous, he founded and led the first Syrian Art Association (1941) and first painting school (1944), won an international competition in New York (1946), and engaged in the Post-WWII peace movement. He was elected member of the World Peace Council, as a number of this period world intellectuals (Picasso, Aragon, Joliot-Curie, etc.). He discovered Europe and China and their art in the 1950s on this occasion. Following the Palestinian Nakba (1948) and the Suez War (1956) he became strongly committed to the Arab political life, praising President Nasser and seeking asylum in Egypt after the failure of the restoration of the United Arab Republic in 1963. He only returned to Syria in 1982 and passed away in 1985.
Said Tahsin was a prolific painter (more than 2000 paintings according to his list), basing his art on his country and own heritage and culture. He played with different styles to tackle various subjects: natural scenes of his beloved Arab countries, the life of the society, spiritual, Sufi, humanitarian, and peace thoughts. He had only one main solo exhibition in Cairo in 1965, while living his own artistic experience away from the fame reached by his contemporary Syrian, Iraqi, Lebanese, and Egyptian painters.
He wrote in 1950:
I believe in ideas that are not from the world that exists today, since religion and art are similar in their nature, both calling on perceiving, imagining, and feeling that which cannot be seen.