Said Tahsin is a Syrian modern painter of the early 20th century (1904-1985). Self-taught, he founded a painting teaching school in Beirut (1925-1928) and was later nominated as the painting teacher at the University College in Bagdad (1934-1941). Returning to Syria and already famous, he founded and led the first Syrian Art Association (1941) and first painting school (1944), won an international competition in New York (1946), and engaged in the Post-WWII peace movement. He was elected member of the World Peace Council, as a number of this period world intellectuals (Picasso, Aragon, Joliot-Curie, etc.). He discovered Europe and China and their art in the 1950s on this occasion. Following the Palestinian Nakba (1948) and the Suez War (1956) he became strongly committed to the Arab political life, praising President Nasser and seeking asylum in Egypt after the failure of the restoration of the United Arab Republic in 1963. He only returned to Syria in 1982 and passed away in 1985