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Lot Essay
Louay Kayyali is best-known for his depictions of dispossessed working-class figures, where the focus is a single figure, typically boys forced to work in menial jobs such as shoe-shiners and newspaper or lottery ticket vendors, rather than attending school. The present lot from 1960 is an exceptional and poignant example, the boy with sad eyes sells the traditional Syrian ice cream called booza. Booza is a pounded ice cream mixed with sahlab, rose water, and mastic. booza sellers have become a recognizable part of the Syrian urban cultural scene, and this work reflects their need to survive through selling in the streets.
Melancholy and resignation best characterize much of Kayyali's work after the 1967 war and the sentiments of political failure in the Arab World in general. Active during a time of immense upheaval, Kayyali was one of the region's most prominent socio-political artists, his paintings externalising the pressing humanitarian and political issues that surrounded him. His powerful depictions of ordinary people are characterized by strong fluid lines that define the figures and the absence of extraneous detail. Although reminiscent of Russian social realist painting, through his humane treatment of his subjects he conferred them with more individuality and pathos. A recurrent theme in his work was the desolation and misery of social outsiders, his trauma finding expression in a series of deeply sentimental paintings.
Melancholy and resignation best characterize much of Kayyali's work after the 1967 war and the sentiments of political failure in the Arab World in general. Active during a time of immense upheaval, Kayyali was one of the region's most prominent socio-political artists, his paintings externalising the pressing humanitarian and political issues that surrounded him. His powerful depictions of ordinary people are characterized by strong fluid lines that define the figures and the absence of extraneous detail. Although reminiscent of Russian social realist painting, through his humane treatment of his subjects he conferred them with more individuality and pathos. A recurrent theme in his work was the desolation and misery of social outsiders, his trauma finding expression in a series of deeply sentimental paintings.