It is with much sadness to have discovered that Sliman Mansour, one of the most important figures in modern Palestinian art and history, has left us at the age of 79, older than the entity of Israel itself.
The announcement was made by Mansour’s family on his verified Instagram account shortly after a post saying he was in critical condition. “The final chapter has been written,” the family said. “With hearts heavy beyond words, we share that our beloved father has passed away.” “To the world, he leaves behind a life filled with beauty, memory, and a legacy that will continue to live through all those he touched. But to us, we lost a father, our source of love, strength, and home.” No cause of death has been disclosed.
Born in Birzeit, near Ramallah, one of the few remaining Palestinian Christian towns, located in the central West Bank in 1947,just months before the mass displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people began under the Nakba and the formal establishment of the State of Israel.
He would spend his adolescence in Bethlehem and Jerusalem. These experiences left a significant mark on his work, heightening a sense of gradual loss in Palestine, especially after the occupation of the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1967.
His early experiences also presented him with the symbols and images he would later use to preserve and highlight Palestinian identity. By using symbols derived from Palestinian life, culture, history, and tradition, Mansour uniquely illustrates Palestinians’ resolve and connection with their land. His pieces epitomize art as a form of resistance.
Mansour was at the forefront of Palestinian art for more than five decades. His work helped to shape a visual language for Palestinian identity, drawing repeatedly on the land and the experiences of displacement and occupation.
Mansour graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem in 1970. He found his subjects in the landscape and daily life around him. Olive trees and traditional embroidery recur throughout his paintings, while Jerusalem appears as both a place and an object of longing. With orange trees, he represents land lost in the Nakba of 1948. With olive trees, he represents land occupied in 1967.
With women wearing traditional embroidered dresses, he represents Palestinian land and the Palestinian revolution. With the landscape of Palestine and its stone terraces, he represents the mark of Palestinian farmers on the land. With images of Jerusalem, and the glistening Dome of the Rock, he represents the Palestinian homeland and the dream of return.
For over five decades, Mansour did more than create art—he painted the visual soul, memory, and enduring identity of Palestine. He was an incredible Palestinian painter, sculptor, and honestly a massive figure in the contemporary art world. He used his talent to capture the real, everyday lives of his people. Mansour’s brushstrokes became synonymous with the idea of sumud or steadfastness.
His Palestinians were never merely refugees or statistics. They were rooted. Beautiful. Defiant. They carried keys, harvests, children, histories and an entire homeland within them. And perhaps that is why his work became so beloved. Because when a people are told that their history can be erased, remembering becomes an act of resistance.
For over five decades,Mansour did more than create art—he painted the visual soul, memory, and enduring identity of Palestine He also did so much for the community, teaching at Al-Quds University and in 1973, he co-founded the League of Palestinian Artists, shaping the cultural front of resistance for years alongside peers like Nabil Anani and Issam Bader.
In 1976, Sliman Mansour participated in a significant exhibition titled “Art Exhibition by Artists in Occupied Palestine”, held in London aboard the Tattershall Castle yacht on the River Thames.
This event was among the first collective exhibitions in the Western hemisphere to focus on Palestinian art, showcasing works by prominent artists including Mansour, Nabil Anani, Issam Bader, Khalil Rayan, Leila Al-Shawa, Kamel Al-Mughanni, Isma’il Ashour, and Khalil Dadah.
Later in 1979, the three co-founded Gallery 79 in Ramallah, creating a key platform for Palestinian art locally and internationally.
Jailed, beaten, and threatened by the Israeli government throughout his career, Mansour remained steadfast in affirming human rights through his paintings. Mansour's art was always bound up with resistance. He recounted how, in 1980, the Israeli occupation army shut down an exhibition of his work in Ramallah after three hours and later summoned him and his fellow artists to warn them against political painting.
His paintings became a symbol of protest at a time when Israel forbade the display of the Palestinian flag. He recalled being told that painting the Palestinian flag was forbidden, and even its colors, red, green, black, and white, were banned, an exchange in which an Israeli officer warned that even a watermelon rendered in those colors would be confiscated, giving rise to the watermelon that would later become a global symbol of Palestinian resistance.
He turned that defiance into a way of working. A founder and leader of the League of Palestinian Artists, Mansour co-founded the New Visions collective during the First Intifada alongside Vera Tamari, Tayseer Barakat, and Nabil Anani, boycotting Israeli art supplies and turning instead to materials drawn from the land itself, mud, henna, and natural dyes.
Mud became central to his art, layered onto wooden forms and left to crack as it dried, so that the very earth of Palestine carried the fragility and endurance of its people.
Working under occupation was tough, and his response during the First Intifada in 1987 was powerful. He helped start a collective called New Visions where they boycotted Israeli art supplies.
Instead, they made art using natural, local materials like mud, henna, and straw. It was such a strong act of defiance to literally use the physical earth of Palestine to tell their story, proving that art itself is a profound form of resistance.
Among his best-known works is his iconic, heartbreaking masterpiece Camel of Hardship (Jamal Al Mahamel) depicting an elderly, traditionally dressed Palestinian porter walking through a void while carrying the city of Jerusalem on his back, secured by a rope around his forehead.The work has come to represent the heavy and enduring burden of exile, resilience and the Palestinian struggle under occupation.
I Witness Silwan: Was a huge collaborative mural project in East Jerusalem. In which he helped paint massive, watchful eyes on buildings as a silent protest against displacement. Read more here:
In this vibrant depiction of a family harvesting olives, Mansour celebrates the intimate bond between Palestinians and their land.
Olive Picking Sliiman Mansour
The olive tree, a symbol of Palestinian resilience and survival, stands at the heart of the painting, representing the people's unyielding connection to their roots, even in the face of hardship.
The Mother and Child Sliman Mansour
This powerful work depicts a Palestinian mother holding her child in a tender, protective embrace.
The mother represents strength and survival, while the child symbolises hope for a better future.The painting highlights the vital role of women in preserving culture and family amidst ongoing struggle.
The Daughter of Jerusalem Sliman Mansour
Mansour personifies Jerusalem through the image of a strong Palestinian woman draped in traditional attire. Surrounded by elements of the city's iconic architecture, she symbolises the nurturing role of women in preserving culture and resisting erasure.
The bride of the Homeland Sliman Mansour.
This painting was dedicated to Lena al Nabulsi, who on May 15, 1976, in the heart of occupied Nablus, 15-year-old Lina Al Nabulsi, a schoolgirl with dreams as vast as the Palestinian sky, was gunned down by the Israel Defence Forces. Her crime? Joining a protest against the illegal occupation that suffocated her city, her people, her future.
The IDF claimed it was an accidental stray bullet, but the people of Nablus, led by Mayor Bassan al-Shaqa, cried murder, pointing to her known activism as a motive. No justice followed, only mourning, as Nablus shut down for two days, and Lina’s funeral became a defiant march for freedom. Her death became a rallying cry, immortalized in this painting by artist Mansour .Lina was not just a victim; she became a symbol of Palestinian resilience, a reminder of the cost of occupation. According to Mansour. fewer than 100 prints of the painting were distributed before the balance of the posters and the original painting were confiscated by the Israeli government .Here's her story: https://thepalestineproject.medium.com/lina-al-nabulsis-story-385eb7fc8dd3
The struggle goes on… Sliman Mansour
This dynamic painting portrays a procession of Palestinians, capturing their enduring spirit and cultural perseverance. The movement and determination of the figures reflect Mansour's focus on the collective resilience of his people.
His galleries spanned the globe, but his heart and his canvas remained forever rooted in Birzeit and Jerusalem.
“I was moulded by the Palestinian landscape. The land plays an important role in my art and in my nature as a human being. I said to myself ‘rather than drawing the land, I will draw with land.’ People would ‘inhale’ my artwork at exhibitions – they would feel the Palestinian heritage, by touch, by scent, with the senses”- Sliman Mansour
He didn't just capture the struggle; he preserved the dignity, folklore, traditional dress, and landscapes of a people refusing to be erased.
Beyond his own canvases, Mansour devoted his life to building a foundation for Palestinian art. He co-founded the al-Wasiti Art Centre in occupied Jerusalem in 1994 to preserve Palestinian art and connect artists at home with those in exile, helped establish the International Academy of Art Palestine in Ramallah, and taught a generation of students at Al-Quds University.
He received many honors including the Palestine Prize for the Visual Arts (1998), Grand Nile Prize at the Seventh Cairo Biennial (1998) and UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture (2019).
His works can be found in the collections of the British Museum, London, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, L’institut du Monde Arabe, Paris and Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, among others.
In his final years, even after a stroke in 2021 weakened his hand, Mansour continued going to his Ramallah studio, unwilling to stop. As Israel's genocide in Gaza unfolded, he described being haunted by unbearable images he could exorcise only through painting. He remained, to the end, an artist who bore witness.
I mourn the passing of the revered icon of Palestinian art, Sliman Mansour. His art is an eternal vessel of collective memory of Palestine, of the beauty of the land, and of the resilience and rootedness of the Palestinian people. He narrated the struggle of Palestine, visualized its soul onto his canvasses, and preserved the dignity of its people. Through his art, he carved a space for a future of liberation, return, and freedom, juxtaposed with our heritage, history, and the land that can never be erased.
Mansour’s art reminds us of the different forms of resistance, giving Palestinians a language of images that could circulate where words or politics could not.Rendering eternal the struggle of a people living under the grip of the dystopian military occupation by Israel.
Though we have lost a master storyteller, a mentor, and a cultural pillar, his work and legacy will live on as a testament to a homeland, a people, and a story that can never be erased, and will forever live in Palestinian collective memory and across generations to come. Mansour leaves behind a career spanning hundreds of paintings, chronicling the political and social transformations experienced by the Palestinian people.
Safe passage to this great , revolutionary artist of unparalleled spirit and steadfastness. Rest in eternal peace and power. Free Palestine,
“Revolution is not only shooting, it is art.” — Sliman Mansour
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