His father was a pharmacist in Damascus , and his uncle was Muhammad Kurd Ali , the historian , scholar, and founder of the Arab Scientific Academy in Damascus . He learned drawing from the artist Abdul Hamid Abdul Rabbo in primary school, and completed his studies at “ Maktab Anbar ”, the prestigious secondary school in Damascus, which gave him the opportunity to meet his teacher George Boulos Khoury, the man who learned the arts of drawing and decoration in Paris. At the age of sixteen, he joined the National Music House as an accordion player, but two years later, in 1938, he held an exhibition of his paintings at the Damascus Officers Club. In the late thirties, he traveled to Italy with the intention of studying art. Due to the outbreak of World War II, he quickly returned to Syria and then to Egypt in 1942 to study painting, where he spent five years. His works are owned by the Syrian Ministry of Culture / National Museum of Damascus / Republican Palace / in private collections. Nasir Shura’s studio, located in Madfa Square in Abu Rummaneh , is considered one of the oldest private studios in Damascus, and served as a cultural center where artists, writers, musicians, philosophers and poets met.