Remembering Sliman Mansour, a defining figure of Palestinian art

Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour died on Monday, 24 August, aged 79, and his funeral was held Wednesday, 26 August, at the Anglican Church in his hometown of Birzeit in the occupied West Bank, according to his family. Born in Birzeit in 1947, Mansour became a pioneer of contemporary Palestinian art, helping shape a distinct Palestinian visual identity rooted in land, memory, and the experience of displacement following the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 occupation. In 1973 he co-founded the League of Palestinian Artists, the first official Palestinian art body, which organized exhibitions in public spaces and later internationally; that same year he made his best-known painting Jamal al-Mahamel (Camel of Hardships) (1973), depicting a porter carrying Jerusalem. In 1987, he and artists including Vera Tamari, Tayseer Barakat, and Nabil Anani founded the New Visions group as a form of cultural resistance, and tributes came from organizations such as the A.M. Qattan Foundation and Gaza’s Shababeek Group for Contemporary Art.

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