Laila Shawa – was born in 1940 to a wealthy Gazan family. As a child, she was curious about art, but per her own description, her career as an artist started with a happy coincidence. In the mid-1950s, she was enrolled in the American University of Cairo as a student of political science and sociology when she had tea with her father and a family friend. When he found out that Shawa was not enjoying her studies, the friend, an architect, expressed confusion as to why she wasn’t studying art, given her exceptional drawing skills. He suggested she enroll at the Leonardo Da Vinci School of Art in Cairo, where he was a professor; her father agreed, and the rest is history.
Following a year at Leonardo Da Vinci, Shawa transferred to the School of Fine Arts in Rome, where she earned a BA with honors in 1960. From 1960 to 1964, she remained in Rome to study at the Scuola di Arti Ornamentali San Giacomo, where she earned a degree in plastic and decorative arts.
(DALLOUL ART FOUNDATION)
