Louay Kayyali (Syrian, 1934-1978)

The present work is the first painting that was acquired by the Tobler family. From Kayyali's Flowers series, it is an early example of Kayyali's still-life paintings, depicted in a free-flowing manner. The choice of the elongated canvas to portray the fine copper vase is typical of Italian frescos, which Kayyali discovered while studying in Italy and later used in many of his works. The flower bouquet provides a sumptuous array of colours, allowing Kayyali to explore a combination of contrasted materials, man-made with copper and organic with flora.
The subject matter is basic: an elevated perspective of a roughly painted vase filled with some spring carnations and freshly plucked white marguerite flowers, painted with spontaneous brushstrokes. With warm and subtle autumn colours set against a bright background, Kayyali plays with contrasts giving the central vase a prominent position in the composition. The flowers become a metaphor for the fleeting memories and objects as their fate is to dry as time passes by, while they also reveal the artist's urge to move away from the social realities that he encountered at the time in Syria, the subject matter becoming a pretext for his own metaphysical escape from the somewhat challenging reality around him.