Lasting Impressions: Ismail Shammout and Tamam El-Akhal

Event Date: 24/10/2018 - 15/12/2018
Location: Sharjah Art Museum
Lasting Impressions: Ismail Shammout and Tamam El-Akhal


It is annual exhibition organized by Sharjah Art Museum. Every year the exhibition committee hosts an artist from the Middle East. In 2018, Ismail Shammout is a Palestinian artist who was born on 1930 in the town of Lydda in Palestine. At the age of 18 he was among hundreds of thousands of Palestinians that witnessed the tragedy of being forced out of their homes and towns by Jewish forces in order to create Israel. This dramatic experience was reflected in many of his paintings and influenced his entire career.

Ismail Shammout has long been recognized as Palestine’s leading modernist painters. His prominent style employs familiar symbols of Palestinian traditions and culture that have contributed to constructing a visual narrative of Palestinian nationalism continuing to influence today’s generation of Palestinian, as well as Middle Eastern artists. Shammout who, at the age of 18, during the Nakba, was forced by the Israeli and Jewish forces to flee from his birthplace [Lydda – Palestine] and take refuge in a refugee camp in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip is today one of the most renowned Arab artists. His wife, Tamam El-Akhal who herself also experienced the tragedy of expulsion from her home in Jaffa during the Nakba in May 1948 became also a leading figure in the Palestinian Arts scene and was instrumental in the development of Shammout’s career. Both artists contributed by that decisively to the artistic visual preservation of the Palestinian tragedy and history and together significantly marked the modern collective memory and cultural heritage of Palestine.

With more than 70 original works by Shammout and El-Akhal from different periods, this exhibition aims to reflect the main stages in the artistic careers of both artists and allows a deep and emotional view in the tragedy, hope and pride of the Palestinian people.

 

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Exhibition Highlights