1934 Damaskus – 2016 Berlin

Marwan was born in 1934, in Damascus, Syria. He studied Arabic literature at the university there from 1955 to 1957. In 1957, he went to Berlin. He initially wanted to go to Paris to continue his artistic studies and learn from the French modernists, but a friend convinced him to visit Berlin. Marwan quickly became attached to the city and decided to attend Hann Trier’s painting class at the Academy of Arts in the district of Charlottenburg. He had already received drawing and painting lessons in his homeland.

In divided Berlin, he found a completely different art scene compared to the one in Damascus. In that period, informalism was dominant, and its prominent representative was Hann Trier. Marwan’s teacher encouraged him to find a more unrestrained form and to free himself from the influence of European painting. The influence of informalism is obvious in his first works in Berlin. However, he quickly went back to more figurative elements – his own face and body, or surreal, gloomy landscapes – but using a free, abstract language of colours and forms.

In the 1960s, he painted self-portraits. During that period, he also painted political portraits of known activists and intellectuals in the Arabic world. Around 1970, the first “Gesichtslandschaften” (Face Landscapes) were created, which picture disfigured and distorted faces with deep wrinkles that look like landscapes up close. They are continued in “Köpfe” (Heads), which were painted from the 1980s and further the abstract approach to surfaces.

In 1966, Marwan received the Karl Hofer award, and from 1977 to 2002 he was a lecturer at the Berlin University of Arts. In 2005, he received the Forum culturel libanais award and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. After museum exhibitions, including in Germany, France, and the Middle East, the Haus am Waldsee in Berlin organised his most recent retrospective in 2009 for his 75th birthday.

Marwan lived and worked in Berlin until his death in 2016, but he was always closely connected with the Middle East. In 1999, he created Darat al Funun’s Summer Academy for the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation in Amman, Jordan. His works are valued by Middle Eastern collectors, for example, in Beirut.