Fateh Modarres, a pioneer in modern Syrian art history, was born near Aleppo in 1922.
Moudarres's remarkable talents were recognized during his secondary schooling at the Aleppo American College.
He graduated from this college in 1940.
He earned a bachelor's degree at Academia di Belle Arti, Rome from 1956-1960.
Later, he pursued graduate studies in Paris at the Ecole Superieure des Beaux-Arts (1969-1972).
After returning to Syria in 1993, he became the Dean of Fine Arts Association at the University of Damascus. He also headed the Department of Fine Arts.
He continued to improve his artistic skills throughout his lifetime under Wahbi al Hariri, his mentor and friend for life. Wahbi introduced him to Louay Kaali, another artist.
Moudarres, Kayali and other Syrian artists represented Syria at the Venice Biennale in 1961.
He was self-taught and focused his early education on realist techniques.
It wasn't until he began formal schooling that he became interested in surrealism.
He pursued his interest in surrealism and learned to abstract during his formal education. Franco Gentilini, his teacher in Italy, encouraged Moudarres to continue exploring his artistic heritage, even though he had begun this process before arriving in Europe.
Moudarres, who drew inspiration from Sumerian and Assyrian visual traditions as well as Christian icons, developed his own style, characterized by warm colors and a play between figuration, abstraction and transparency.
His work became lighter and abstracter as he progressed in career.
In awe of the infinite variety of colors and the beauty of nature, Moudarres painted expansive, idyllic landscapes that evoked the rural area where he was raised.
The figures he painted were flat and rectangular, recalling Assyrian and Sumerian rulers, but they also depicted Syrian peasants and women, including his mother.
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