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Descriptif du lot
Kopf (Head) is an imposing work from Marwan’s celebrated Heads series of the 1980s. Significantly, the painting was exhibited in Paris in 1988 as part of Quatre peintres arabes, première: Azzaoui, El Kamel, Kacimi, Marwan at the Institut du monde arabe, an important institutional presentation of Marwan’s work. A solitary head occupies the full verticality of the canvas, confronting the viewer with a powerful yet deeply introspective presence. The face emerges through densely accumulated layers of pigment and thick impasto, built through layers of purples, subdued reds, ochres, browns and olive greens. Its fragmented features appear to dissolve into the surface, simultaneously emerging and receding within the uneven texture. The thick, worked surface gives the impression of a face gradually excavated and reconstructed through the physical process of painting. The resulting sculptural quality of the work makes the physical accumulation of paint inseparable from the psychological intensity of the image. At this scale, the head transcends individual likeness, its verticality and imposing physical presence giving it a totemic monumentality, transforming the expansive canvas into a liminal space where loss lingers and something deeply human endures. In Kopf (Head), the accumulation of paint is therefore not simply a technical device but part of the work’s emotional language, with each layer seemingly registering a process of searching, obscuring and returning. The face emerges from this process as a presence that is at once vulnerable and enduring.
This sense of excavation was central to Marwan’s Head series. Following the death of his sister Raqia in 1983, his approach to painting underwent a profound transformation. In a letter to the writer Abdelrahman Munif, he reflected: “My painting has indeed changed; my first painting after my sister’s death was the first head” (A. R. Munif, Marwan: Journey of Life and Friendship, Berlin 1996). The first Head thus marked a rupture with his earlier practice. Where the Facial Landscapes of the 1970s stretched horizontally across the canvas, the Heads of the 1980s and 1990s rose in vertical stillness. No longer viewed in profile or from above, these faces turned directly to the viewer, confronting the gaze with a solemn directness. This shift was accompanied by a fundamental change in Marwan's working method. He abandoned preparatory sketches in favour of intuition. Working in dense layers of pigment, his brushstrokes were applied, erased and reworked, building surfaces where the face flickered between presence and absence.
Marwan came to conceive of the head itself as a kind of topography, a surface to be excavated as he searched beneath the visible image, describing the process as “painting souls.” The physical act of building, dismantling and rebuilding the painted surface therefore became central to his understanding of the head. Throughout this journey, he moved away from individual likeness in favour of archetypal presences imbued with grief, exile and resilience. Kopf (Head) unites the defining concerns of Marwan’s mature practice, transforming the human visage into a universal symbol of memory, loss, and endurance. Its solemn simplicity, psychological intensity and layered complexity mark it as one of the culminating expressions of the artist’s career.
The psychological tension of Kopf is further heightened by its affinities with Marwan’s Marionette series. Taking centre stage in his career between 1978 and 1983, the series blurred the boundaries between still life and portraiture, using saturated colour and rhythmic brushwork to open figuration onto symbolism. Traces of this language persist in Kopf, particularly in the marionette-like palette and the fixed, almost doll-like eyes that stare out from the otherwise dissolving face. The presence of the Marionettes seems to linger within the Heads as a quiet undercurrent. What had previously been expressed through the suspended bodies of puppets becomes concentrated in the human visage itself. The suggestion of entrapment remains, but is transformed into something more inward and psychological.
Born in 1934 in Damascus, Syria, he was raised amid the city’s vibrant cultural circles and the rural landscapes of Al-Qasimiyah, where the distinctive Damascene light and scenery profoundly shaped his artistic imagination. His early work focused on landscapes, informed by the Syrian landscapist Nasser Chaura as well as the Impressionist sensibilities of Claude Monet and Édouard Manet. In 1957, he left Syria, intending to study in Paris, but settled in Berlin, where he remained for the rest of his life. At the Hochschule der Künste, he studied under Hann Trier, absorbing the gestural freedom of German Informel while encountering the confrontational figuration of artists such as Georg Baselitz and Eugen Schönebeck. These influences, combined with the memory of Damascus, shaped a distinctive visual language that merged European experimentation with his Arab heritage. Marwan stands as one of the most influential artists in the global art scene.
His work is included in major international collections such as Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Tate, London; Berlinische Galerie-Museum of Modern Art, Photography and Architecture, Berlin; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, Atassi Foundation, Dubai; Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF), Beirut and the Pinault Collection, Venice and Paris. In Summer 2025, Christie’s held a major retrospective MARWAN: A Soul in Exile in London followed by the presentation Giacometti / Marwan Obsessions at Fondation Alberto Giacometti, Paris in 2025-2026.
This sense of excavation was central to Marwan’s Head series. Following the death of his sister Raqia in 1983, his approach to painting underwent a profound transformation. In a letter to the writer Abdelrahman Munif, he reflected: “My painting has indeed changed; my first painting after my sister’s death was the first head” (A. R. Munif, Marwan: Journey of Life and Friendship, Berlin 1996). The first Head thus marked a rupture with his earlier practice. Where the Facial Landscapes of the 1970s stretched horizontally across the canvas, the Heads of the 1980s and 1990s rose in vertical stillness. No longer viewed in profile or from above, these faces turned directly to the viewer, confronting the gaze with a solemn directness. This shift was accompanied by a fundamental change in Marwan's working method. He abandoned preparatory sketches in favour of intuition. Working in dense layers of pigment, his brushstrokes were applied, erased and reworked, building surfaces where the face flickered between presence and absence.
Marwan came to conceive of the head itself as a kind of topography, a surface to be excavated as he searched beneath the visible image, describing the process as “painting souls.” The physical act of building, dismantling and rebuilding the painted surface therefore became central to his understanding of the head. Throughout this journey, he moved away from individual likeness in favour of archetypal presences imbued with grief, exile and resilience. Kopf (Head) unites the defining concerns of Marwan’s mature practice, transforming the human visage into a universal symbol of memory, loss, and endurance. Its solemn simplicity, psychological intensity and layered complexity mark it as one of the culminating expressions of the artist’s career.
The psychological tension of Kopf is further heightened by its affinities with Marwan’s Marionette series. Taking centre stage in his career between 1978 and 1983, the series blurred the boundaries between still life and portraiture, using saturated colour and rhythmic brushwork to open figuration onto symbolism. Traces of this language persist in Kopf, particularly in the marionette-like palette and the fixed, almost doll-like eyes that stare out from the otherwise dissolving face. The presence of the Marionettes seems to linger within the Heads as a quiet undercurrent. What had previously been expressed through the suspended bodies of puppets becomes concentrated in the human visage itself. The suggestion of entrapment remains, but is transformed into something more inward and psychological.
Born in 1934 in Damascus, Syria, he was raised amid the city’s vibrant cultural circles and the rural landscapes of Al-Qasimiyah, where the distinctive Damascene light and scenery profoundly shaped his artistic imagination. His early work focused on landscapes, informed by the Syrian landscapist Nasser Chaura as well as the Impressionist sensibilities of Claude Monet and Édouard Manet. In 1957, he left Syria, intending to study in Paris, but settled in Berlin, where he remained for the rest of his life. At the Hochschule der Künste, he studied under Hann Trier, absorbing the gestural freedom of German Informel while encountering the confrontational figuration of artists such as Georg Baselitz and Eugen Schönebeck. These influences, combined with the memory of Damascus, shaped a distinctive visual language that merged European experimentation with his Arab heritage. Marwan stands as one of the most influential artists in the global art scene.
His work is included in major international collections such as Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Tate, London; Berlinische Galerie-Museum of Modern Art, Photography and Architecture, Berlin; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, Atassi Foundation, Dubai; Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation (DAF), Beirut and the Pinault Collection, Venice and Paris. In Summer 2025, Christie’s held a major retrospective MARWAN: A Soul in Exile in London followed by the presentation Giacometti / Marwan Obsessions at Fondation Alberto Giacometti, Paris in 2025-2026.