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Lot Essay
Executed in 1981 and rendered with watercolour and graphite, Kopf (Head) is an important example of Marwan’s Heads series. Thin washes of blue, green, purple and earth tones bleed into one another across the paper. Applied in varying intensities, the colours occasionally run and fuse but more often appear as loose dabs, splashes and gestural curvilinear lines forming the image of a face. Areas of paper left white elevate the light and, as negative shapes developed between brushstrokes, are expressive as the colours. The fleeting image of the face comes to represent optimism with dread, anxiety with tenderness and suffering with its knowledge of redemption. The composition anticipates Marwan’s later Heads, where the portrait becomes less an individual representation than a site for exploring psychological and emotional states. Created just two years before the death of his sister Raqia in 1983, which marked a pivotal turning point for the artist’s practice and profound transformation in his painting style, this work is a rare work of this transitional period of his life and practice.
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. Today, Marwan stands as one of the most influential artists in the global art scene, with Christie’s dedicating a major retrospective MARWAN: A Soul in Exile in 2025 and Fondation Alberto Giacometti opening the exhibition Giacometti / Marwan Obsessions in 2026, a first joint presentation of their works.
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 and Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah.
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. Today, Marwan stands as one of the most influential artists in the global art scene, with Christie’s dedicating a major retrospective MARWAN: A Soul in Exile in 2025 and Fondation Alberto Giacometti opening the exhibition Giacometti / Marwan Obsessions in 2026, a first joint presentation of their works.
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 and Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah.