Iconic Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour dies at age 79
His art became powerful expression of Palestinian identity, heritage, displacement and steadfastness over five decades
RAMALLAH, Palestine (MNTV) — Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour, whose paintings became internationally recognized representations of Palestinian identity and resistance, has died at the age of 79, Al Jazeera reported.
Mansour’s family announced his death on Monday after earlier saying that he was in critical condition. No cause of death was immediately disclosed.
Born in Birzeit near Ramallah in 1947, Mansour spent more than five decades developing a distinctive artistic language centered on Palestinian land, culture and collective memory.
His work frequently depicted olive trees, traditional Palestinian clothing, Jerusalem and scenes connected to displacement and life under occupation.
One of his best-known works, “Jamal Al Mahamel,” or “Camel of Hardship,” portrays an elderly Palestinian man carrying an image of Jerusalem on his back. The painting became one of the most recognizable symbols of Palestinian art and was widely reproduced beyond galleries and exhibitions.
The figure represented the Palestinian concept of sumud, or steadfastness, reflecting Mansour’s broader effort to preserve Palestinian identity through visual art.
Mansour graduated from Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in 1970 and later became deeply involved in developing Palestinian artistic institutions. He helped establish the League of Palestinian Artists and served as its leader from 1986 to 1990.
During the First Intifada, Mansour co-founded the New Visions collective alongside Vera Tamari, Tayseer Barakat and Nabil Anani. The group rejected dependence on Israeli art supplies and experimented with locally available materials, including mud and henna, making the physical landscape of Palestine part of their artistic expression.
Mansour also helped establish the Al-Wasiti Art Centre in East Jerusalem in 1994 and later joined the founding board of the International Academy of Art Palestine in Ramallah. He taught at Al-Quds University from 2000 to 2014 and contributed illustrations and cartoons to Palestinian publications.
His work received international recognition, including the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture in 2019, as well as the Palestine Prize for the Visual Arts and the Grand Nile Prize at the Cairo Biennial.
Mansour continued creating art despite suffering a stroke in 2021 that affected his left hand and made painting more difficult. During the Gaza war, he said the violence had profoundly affected his artistic process, with disturbing images increasingly finding their way onto his canvases.
His death marks the loss of one of the most influential figures in modern Palestinian visual culture, whose work connected art with memory, place and the enduring Palestinian experience.
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