Louay Kayyali was born in Aleppo in 1934. From 1956 to 1961, he studied decoration at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. Afterwards he joined the faculty at the Higher Institute for the Fine Arts in Damascus in 1962 with the honor of having been Syria's representative to the Venice Biennale in 1960 (with Fateh al-Mudaress). Although his teaching and productivity was limited to the brief period of 1962-1976, his impact on the younger generation of Syrians, not only artists but the wider "laboring masses," spread through traveling exhibitions, lectures, museum acquisitions, teaching in public institutions. He died tragically in a fire in his home in 1978.

Kirsten Scheid
*********************************************************
Kirsten Scheid is a Beirut-based anthropologist and art historian who writes regularly on modern and contemporary art in the Middle East. Her research interests include the history of painting in Lebanon, cross-cultural investments in fine art, and the use of art for negotiating ambiguous social identities such as gender and class.  She is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the American University of Beirut.