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“Our fight now is to tell the world that we are full human beings,” Mansour told Hyperallergic in 2023. “We are not less than any other people in the world.”
Sliman Mansour, a distinguished Palestinian artist who documented his nation’s struggle for freedom over more than sixty years, passed away at 79 in Jerusalem. Mansour’s family shared the news on Instagram on Monday, August 24, after previously stating that he was in “critical condition.” The cause of death has not been disclosed.
“To the world, he leaves behind a life filled with beauty, memory, and a legacy that will continue to live through all those he touched,” his family expressed in an Instagram post. “But to us, we lost a father, our source of love, strength, and home.”
Born in 1947 in Birzeit, Palestine, Mansour arrived just months before the Nakba and the creation of the State of Israel, which led to the mass displacement and genocide of Palestinians. Throughout his career, he faced imprisonment, beatings, and threats from the Israeli government but remained resolute in advocating for human rights through his art. From his Ramallah studio in the West Bank, he captured life before the Israeli occupation and the subsequent hardships faced by Palestinian civilians and communities due to military actions.
“Anything that is Palestinian, even just being here, breathing and thinking, is a sensitive matter to the Israelis because they built their narrative around denying our existence,” Mansour stated in a 2023 interview with Hyperallergic. “Our work not only as painters but as intellectuals — in culture, in everything — is to express that we are here.”
