Insights into
Palestinian Art History

To learn about Palestinian art is to learn about Palestinian history.
The evolution of Palestinian art, particularly as a form of national identity, is inextricably tied to the shifts of the country itself. Moments such as the 1948 Nakba were key points in time both for Palestine overall and for how it impacted the arts specifically.

Resources
The history coverage includes research from the following books:

• Palestinian Art: From 1850 to the Present by Kamal Boullata, 2009

• Liberation Art of Palestine: Palestinian Painting and Sculpture in the Second Half of the 20th Century by Samia Halaby, 2001

• The Origins of Palestinian Art by Bashir Makhoul and Gordon Hon, 2013

And the PhD dissertation of:

• The Next Generation: Shifting Notions of Time, Humor, and Criticality in Contemporary Palestinian Art by Sascha Manya Crasnow, 2018

Additionally, supplemental online research has been used to fill in certain gaps. This includes sources such as The Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question, a joint project by the Institute for Palestine Studies and the Palestinian Museum.

Palestinian artists have largely taken it upon themselves to document their art history. Ismail Shammout published الفن التشكيلي في فلسطين (Art in Palestine) in 1989, the first book-length study of Palestinian art. There are select Arabic texts about Palestinian art history that have not been read yet, as well as some other English texts not currently available.

Disclaimer
In Kamal Boullata’s book, Palestinian Art, he writes his own disclaimer:

“From art created at home during different periods of Palestine's history to art created in different places of exile, this book does not claim to be comprehensive in any way. It is only an attempt to reconstruct key pieces of 'the larger picture’ of Palestinian art... Its sole ambition has been to lay the foundations of an art history and set up a framework.”

Likewise, the art history coverage of this site follows that same intention.

Also mixed in to the pages will be some general historical context, which again is not meant to be entirely comprehensive. This information is simply to help try to aid in understanding how, when, and why some larger moments happened that impacted the people and the art.

Details for these pages may continue to be added to over time.