Biography
Mansour was born in 1947, one year before the Nakba, in Birzeit north of Jerusalem. He studied art at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, where he was taught Abstract expressionism, a trend he didn't want to study, he wanted to paint more realistic things from life. He developed a realist style of painting, depicting the daily life of those living and rooted in Palestine. In 1987, together with other Palestinian artists like Vera Tamari, Tayseer Barakat, and Nabil Anani, Mansour founded "New Visions", a collective formed in response to the First Intifada (1987–1993). This collective turned to earthworks and mixed media and assemblage using natural materials derived from the Palestinian environment in order to boycott Israeli art supplies in protest of the ongoing occupation. Mansour used mud for the soil. His childhood memories of working with his grandmother when she was building beehives and ovens with mud Artistic inspiration, inspired him. He was always around her, trying to help: ″So when I thought about material that I could use, mud was the first thing that came to my mind. After a while, once I started making figures, I realized that the mud also reflects the human fate with the cracks, people waiting to disappear, fall down and go away.″ In 1988 he made a series of four paintings on List of villages depopulated during the Arab–Israeli conflict, destroyed Palestinian villages, the four villages being Yibna, Yalo, Imwas and Bayt Dajan. He is a co-author of the book ''Both Sides of Peace: Israeli and Palestinian Political Poster Art'', published in 1998 by the Contemporary Art Museum with University of Washington Press. Mansour is the author of two books on Palestinian traditional costumes, traditional Palestinian clothing and embroidery. Mansour contributed extensively to the development of an infrastructure for the fine arts in Palestina. He taught at numerous cultural institutions and universities, including Al-Quds University. He was the head of the League of Palestinian Artists from 1986 to 1990. In 1994, Mansour co-founded al-Wasiti Art Center in East Jerusalem. He is a member of the Founding Board of Directors of the International Academy of Art Palestine, established in 2004.See also
* Palestinian art * New VisionsReferences
Bibliography
*Further reading
* * * * *''Sliman Mansour'', monograph published in 2011 by Palestinian Art Court-Al Hoash, Jerusalem, with essays by Bashir Makhoul, Nicola Gray and Tina SherwellExternal links