RAMALLAH, Wednesday, August 07, 2019 (WAFA) – The Ministry of Culture mourned today the death yesterday in Berlin of Palestinian artist and historian Kamal Boullata. He was 77.

“The Palestinian cultural movement lost with the departure of Boullata a dedicated artist who will remain present in the history and future of Palestinian art as an expression of freedom, struggle and creativity and in the memory of Palestinian generations inspired by his works,” said the ministry in a eulogy statement.

“Boullata remained faithful to Palestine and its cause in its political and humanitarian dimensions. He defeated with his art the aura of darkness and death that the occupation is trying to consolidate and impose in Palestine,” it added.

Boullata, born in 1942 in Jerusalem during the British mandate of Palestine, has been living in exile since the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem and the West Bank in the June 1967 war.

He studied art at the Academy of Rome between 1960 and 1965 and then at the Corcoran Museum School in Washington, DC, after his exile from Jerusalem. He lived in the US, France, Morocco and Lebanon.

He had several art exhibitions in Jerusalem, Amman, Abu Dhabi, Manama, Baghdad, Rabat, Paris, Moscow, Oslo, Tokyo, London and Amsterdam as well as at the National Museum in Washington. He also had  several books on Palestinian art.

M.K.