Tribute to Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour: The eye of sumud has closed

Sliman Mansour’s best-known image shows an exhausted old man carrying Jerusalem on his back. In “Camel of Hardship,” painted in 1973, the city rests on the shoulders of a figure in traditional dress, turning one man’s burden into a portrait of Palestinian memory and endurance.

Mansour died on Aug. 24 in a hospital in East Jerusalem at the age of 79. A painter, sculptor and writer, he belonged to the generation that helped establish contemporary Palestinian visual art. His career lasted more than five decades, and his work was exhibited around the world.

Born in Bir Zeit, north of Ramallah, in 1947, Mansour studied art and design at an academy in Jerusalem and graduated in 1970. He later became a founding member of the Association of Palestinian Plastic Artists. His work drew heavily on Palestinian heritage, using motifs such as tatreez embroidery, olive trees and orange trees as markers of memory and identity.

Women occupied a central place in his paintings. They appeared as farmers rooted in the soil, mothers embodying patience, and figures of steadfast resistance. Through these bodies and landscapes, Mansour gave visual form to sumud, the Palestinian idea of steadfastness.

In 1987, he joined “New Visions,” a collective that boycotted Israeli art supplies and replaced them with local Palestinian natural materials. His work was described by artist Samia Halaby as part of an artistic liberation movement. “Camel of Hardship,” reproduced in homes, streets and public spaces from Gaza to the West Bank, became one of the strongest artistic symbols of resistance and attachment to the land.