Acknowledged as the father of Syrian Impressionism, Nassir Chaura (1920-1992) led an extensive career that spanned over fifty years and traversed several schools of art. After studying oil painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo, Egypt from 1943-47, he quickly emerged as a prominent artist in the 1950s Damascus art scene alongside a second generation of pioneers that thrust national art forward.

The leader of the Impressionist movement until 1964, when he abruptly changed course and took up abstraction, he taught art in secondary schools and became a founding member of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Damascus when it opened in 1960—a position he held for thirty years. Through his instruction, his influence reached several prominent modernists in addition to a number of contemporary forerunners.

In 1970 he returned to representational art, offering a new realistic style that sought to reflect international trends. The result was a freer approach to landscapes and genre scenes in which the emphasis was on color, design and the essence of forms, steering away from traditional modes of representation. His late landscapes are thus airy, detailed and thoroughly current, demonstrating the mature works of an artist who continued to reinvent his aesthetic.