Sliman Mansour’s art symbolizes the resistance and steadfastness of the Palestinian people. Throughout his life in various ways, he has also worked consistently to inspire and train the next generation of Palestinian artists, particularly in the Jerusalem area.
Family and Early Life
A year before the Nakba, Mansour was the fourth son born in a family of six children in Birzeit, north of Ramallah. His father died when he was four years old.1 Without a father to support the family, Mansour’s mother enrolled him and his siblings in a boarding school for orphans funded by Evangelical Lutherans in Bethlehem.2 It was at this school, with the help and encouragement of one specific German teacher, Felix Theis, that his love and talent for art started and developed.3 “Soon,” Mansour says, “everybody in my school saw me as the artist of the school, and even of my town, Birzeit.”4
The school organized many trips around Palestine, which exposed young Mansour to the vibrant colors and textures of Palestine’s landscape. These journeys contributed to broadening his understanding of where he was rooted and planting in him a love for his homeland. In addition, Theis, himself an artist, exposed Mansour to Renaissance and European art.
The natural landscape of Birzeit, which Mansour remembers being filled with thousands of olive trees, would play an important role in the imagery of his future art. Mansour recalls: “it is [in] this landscape that I grew up and spent the summer playing and swimming in natural pools, and eating from all kinds of fruit that grows on the various fruit trees that are between the olive trees.”5
Mansour’s formative years were spent between Bethlehem and Birzeit. He spent a lot of time with his maternal grandmother, Salma, a potter who made earthenware vessels and even construction material for the upkeep of the family home. From her, Mansour learned more about the qualities of natural material and techniques for putting them together—methods which he would later use in his own craft.6
As he described: “I remember when I was a child, I watched my grandmother make beehives from mud mixed with hay. I helped her. Playing with water and mud in the summer was great for a child.”7
Sliman Mansour’s upbringing inspired him to create art using clay and straw.
Credit:
Al Jazeera
But the memories were not all happy ones. Mansour recalls growing up during the 1967 War. His village was situated next to a Jordanian army camp, which the Israelis started bombing the second day of the war. He saw people flee the camp; others were shot by Israelis. He shared the following traumatic memory of the war:
We went to my grandfather’s house, ate food with my grandmother, and went to my aunt’s. We slept there. The following day, we went out to the village, and four Egyptian commandos started shooting at a convoy of Israeli vehicles coming from the north to the town. Three of the four were killed. One retreated to the valleys around Birzeit and escaped. We walked with the people who buried the commandos.8
Education, Career, and Activism
After finishing school, Mansour spent a year working with the intention of saving up and traveling to the United States to study art at the Chicago Art Institute, where he was accepted. However, the 1967 War changed his plans and led him instead to the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in West Jerusalem. He spent three years at the academy, during which one of the artistic trends he reluctantly studied was abstract expressionism. Mansour preferred painting realistic images that mirrored life as closely as possible; and indeed, he developed his own realist style to depict daily life rooted in Palestinian experience.
While he studied, Mansour constantly traveled between both sides of Jerusalem: occupied East Jerusalem, where his family lived, and West Jerusalem, conquered in 1948 and annexed to Israel. He never graduated from the academy, because he couldn’t afford tuition. So, in 1970, after three years, he left and began creating art.
A short while after he left university, he met several artists with whom he began holding art exhibitions in different Palestinian cities. This was also when the Israeli authorities began noticing Mansour’s activities and confiscating his work. Mansour states: “I was one of several artists who was imprisoned. They also censored our exhibitions. They even forbade Palestinian artists to paint in red, green, black and white, the colors of the Palestinian flag.”9
It was this crackdown during the First Intifada that led to a boycott of Israeli goods, revolutionizing contemporary Palestinian art.
The founding figures of New Visions, Vera Tamari, Nabil Anani, Tayseer Barakat, and Sliman Mansour (far right)
Credit:
Vogue Arabia
This boycott was the beginning of a major project of resisting Israeli occupation through Palestinian artistic expression. In 1987, against the backdrop of the First Intifada, Mansour helped found the New Visions collective. The collective called for the boycott of Israeli supplies such as oil and acrylics, and advocated for the use of local, natural Palestinian materials, colors, and dyes. Mansour explains:
I started using mainly mud, and other artists used leather and henna, and wood and other materials. These artistic experiments helped to change and develop Palestinian art, and it formed a link between traditional art (art done between 1950–1988) and the new contemporary art, which started to be created by young artists at the beginning of the 21st century.10
Jerusalem became a central element in the New Visions collective. In fact, New Visions’ first-ever exhibition was held in Jerusalem in 1989. The city featured often in Mansour’s work as a symbolic anchor for Palestinian identity and resistance. One of his most iconic works, Camel of Hardship (1973), features an elderly porter bearing the city of Jerusalem on his back, represented by the Dome of the Rock within an eye-shaped satchel, evoking themes of memory, loss, and steadfastness.11
Sliman Mansour’s Camel of Hardship (1973). A seminal painting featuring the city of Jerusalem as the weight on the porter’s back, a symbol of memory and endurance.
Credit:
Dalloul Art Foundation
Jerusalem holds great significance in two other of Mansour’s paintings from the late 1970s: The Daughter of Jerusalem (1978) and Woman Carrying Jerusalem (1979). The paintings portray women in traditional Palestinian dress bearing the city—either on their heads or chests—depicting Jerusalem as a maternal symbol of resilience and homeland.
Sliman Mansour’s The Daughter of Jerusalem (1978) depicts a young Palestinian woman, adorned in traditional Palestinian dress, standing in a barren landscape with the city of Jerusalem symbolically balanced on her head. The painting is oil on canvas.
Credit:
Dalloul Art Foundation
Mansour’s Woman Carrying Jerusalem (1979) shows a Palestinian woman in a traditional embroidered dress holding a miniature Jerusalem in her arms. The painting is oil on canvas.
Credit:
slimanmansour
A bulletin issued in both Arabic and English in 1989 introducing New Visions and featuring four Palestinian artists: Vera Tamari, Nabil Anani, Sliman Mansour, and Tayseer Barakat. The exhibition was held with the support of the Palestinian Artists Association and Ohannessian-Tako Factories.
Credit:
Palestinian Museum Digital Archive, Item 233600
Art as Resistance
Mansour’s work is deeply intertwined with his activism—using art as a form of resistance and cultural preservation. But he didn’t just paint and sculpt, he actively participated in cultural activism.
In 1994, Mansour cofounded the Al-Wasiti Art Center in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. Its aim was to create a dedicated space for developing and exhibiting Palestinian fine arts, offering young artists a platform to engage culturally and creatively amid Israeli occupation constraints.12 Mansour served as its director from 1996 until 2003.13
He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the International Academy of Art Palestine (IAAP), launched in 2006. Its purpose was to create an institution that would safeguard and promote Palestinian cultural identity through nurturing Palestinian creative talent. Mansour served as the IAAP’s acting executive director from 2006 to 2007.14 In this capacity, he oversaw the academy’s inauguration, administration, and academic operations.
Sliman Mansour at El-Hakawati Palestinian National Theatre in Jerusalem, 1985
Credit:
Wikiart
In addition to his artistic pursuits, Mansour taught fine arts at several institutions. From 1974 to 1983, he taught at the Women’s Teachers Training Center in al-Tira.15 Then, from 1983 to 1985, he was involved with a project at Birzeit University promoting Palestinian handicrafts, which entailed educational outreach.16 From 2000 to 2014, he was also a professor at Al-Quds University.17
Mansour’s art distilled the experience of Palestinians into colors, materials, and subjects grounded in Palestinian collective memory. In his own words:
The symbols embedded in my art, such as the enduring olive tree and the Palestinian embroidery, are not mere motifs; they are vessels of collective memory and steadfast resistance. Through them, I endeavor to transcend temporal boundaries, crafting a visual tapestry that resonates with the enduring spirit of a people subjected to physical and mental displacement.18
Natural landscapes are particularly frequent and iconic in his work, as his art traces the history and transformation of Palestine’s suburbs, hinterlands, checkpoints, neighborhoods, and borders. In this way, Mansour’s art acts as a kind of visual map of Palestine, particularly Jerusalem.
Sliman Mansour signing one of his iconic pieces, The Daughter of Jerusalem (1978)
Credit:
Courtsey of Sliman Mansour via Grazia Magazine
Over the years, Mansour has built a considerable repertoire for himself as a portrait painter, something that went back to his early training with his German schoolteacher when he would be commissioned to create individual portraits out of photographs.
This portrait shows Boulos Khoury, Sliman Mansour’s maternal grandfather and a Greek Orthodox priest in Birzeit in the West Bank. This was one of Mansour’s earliest portraits, showing his grandfather bearded and wearing a cross around his neck. The image is called Portrait of My Grandfather, 1965.
Credit:
Jerusalem Quarterly
The defining theme of Mansour’s artwork is the resilience and steadfastness of the Palestinian people. His paintings give an account of survival despite the unbearable load of exile, struggle, and longing. In this way, his art is a form of resistance, insisting on affirming Palestinian dignity and continuity. His representations of burdened lives, belonging, and identity resonate beyond borders and races, speaking to other oppressed communities.
Sliman Mansour’s Prison (1982) depicts five men, hands bound behind their back and heads covered. While huddled together and confined within the walls of a prison they appear strong, youthful, and resilient in their stance. Oil on canvas.
Credit:
Zaidan Art Blog
Sources
Bukhari, Saeeda. “Art, Heart, and Progress: The Art Galleries and Centres.” Medium, March 15, 2016.
“Checking In with Artist Sliman Mansour.” Caravan, December 29, 2023.
Laningham, Haley. “An Interview with Sliman Mansour.” Southeast Review. Accessed August 15, 2025.
“Launch of the International Academy of Art Palestine.” Electronic Intifada, November 29, 2006.
“The Palestinian Arts Scene, an Overview: Sliman Mansour, Geroge Al Ama, Wisam Salsaa and Amer Shomali.” Bethlehem Cultural Festival. Accessed August 15, 2025.
Sharaf, Rawan. “YURA–Palestinian Visual Art Resources: Restoring Narratives through Art Archives.” This Week in Palestine. Accessed August 15, 2025.
Sherwell, Tina. “Jerusalem: City of Dreams.” Jerusalem Quarterly 49 (2012): 43–53.
“Sliman Mansour.” International Art Colony. Accessed August 15, 2025.
“Sliman Mansour.” The Palestine Prize. Accessed August 15, 2025.
“Sliman Mansour.” Sharjah Art Foundation. Accessed August 15, 2025.
[Profile photo: Middle East Eye]
Notes
1
“Checking In with Artist Sliman Mansour,” Caravan, December 29, 2023.
2
Tina Sherwell, “Jerusalem: City of Dreams,” Jerusalem Quarterly 49 (2012): 44.
3
Sherwell, “Jerusalem,” 44.
4
“Checking In.”
5
“Checking In.”
6
Sherwell, “Jerusalem,” 44.
7
Haley Laningham, “An Interview with Sliman Mansour,” Southeast Review, accessed August 15, 2025.
8
Laningham, “Interview.”
9
“Checking In.”
10
“Checking In.”
11
“Sliman Mansour,” International Art Colony, accessed August 15, 2025.
12
Saeeda Bukhari, “Art, Heart, and Progress: The Art Galleries and Centres,” Medium, March 15, 2016.
13
“The Palestinian Arts Scene, an Overview: Sliman Mansour, Geroge Al Ama, Wisam Salsaa and Amer Shomali,” Bethlehem Cultural Festival, accessed August 15, 2025. The center closed down in 2003. In 2005, its archive was transferred to the Palestinian Art Court—al-Hoash, in Jerusalem, where it became a foundational asset for Yura, the first digital platform of Palestinian visual art, launched in 2022. Rawan Sharaf, “YURA–Palestinian Visual Art Resources: Restoring Narratives through Art Archives,” This Week in Palestine, accessed August 15, 2025.
14
“Launch of the International Academy of Art Palestine,” Electronic Intifada, November 29, 2006.
15
“Sliman Mansour,” The Palestine Prize, accessed August 15, 2025.
16
Sliman Mansour” (Palestine Prize).
17
“Sliman Mansour,” Sharjah Art Foundation, accessed August 15, 2025.
18
Laningham, “Interview.”