Elias Zayat

Elias Zayat born in Damascus in 1935, he studied high school at the Orthodox School in Damascus, and liked and wanted to study architecture, but his father's financial circumstances did not enable him to send him to Beirut to study it. He converted to mathematics study at Damascus University, coinciding with his study of photography under the supervision of the artist Michael Kurcheh between (1952-1955), after which he received a scholarship to study painting in Bulgaria, completed the study of fine arts at the Sofia Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia, and received the rules of art under the supervision of artist Elijah Petrovpin (1956-1960) specializing in oil photography. He graduated from the Academy in 1960, then joined the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo, Egypt in 1961, undertook additional studies and pursued the artist Abdelaziz Darwish, and then, in 1973, undertook additional studies and trained in restoration techniques (Color chemistry) at the Academy of Fine Arts and at the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest. He taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Damascus University from 1962 until his retirement in 2000. In addition to his role in the Arab Encyclopedia as a reference in the definition of church art. One of his most important practical contributions was the establishment of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Damascus in 1960, in collaboration with the senior artists of his generation then.