Marwan studied Arabic literature at Damascus University and in 1957 went to Berlin, which became his home until his death in 2016. There he studied at the Hochschule für bildende Künste, where he later taught, and attended master classes along with Georg Baselitz (born 1938) in the atelier of the influential Hann Trier (1915–1999) between 1957 and 1962. It was the figure that Marwan focused on at first: portraits of his family and friends. As a passionate supporter of the Palestinian cause, his idea for the solitary character in The Uncovered originated in a newspaper photograph of young activists following the Arab defeat by Israel of 1967. During the 1970s, Marwan began
to concentrate obsessively on the head or face, which over the years grew more abstract. In Gesichtslandschaft, he transformed his own likeness into a landscape, with his cheekbones and forehead becoming dips and ravines evocative of the ravages of time upon the skin itself. This is his story; the land of the Syria of his youth was never far away from his consciousness.