The man who wrote the art of Palestine: Who is Kamal Boullata?

I don't remember when and where I first encountered the name Kamal Boullata. It was most likely between 2008 and 2009 when I first became interested in and started researching Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern art. I accessed many of Boullata's articles from online sources, especially while researching Palestinian art. His magnificent work titled Palestinian Art 1850 To The Present, published in 2009 (which I could only obtain in 2010), remains at my fingertips as a book that I frequently refer to. This book, for which John Berger wrote the foreword, is, in my opinion, the most important work written by the artist as an art historian.

Kamal Boullata was a Palestinian artist, writer, and art historian. He graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome with a degree in fine arts in 1965. He continued his education at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC, from 1968-71, where he received an MFA. Over the last four decades, he lived in the USA (1968-1992), Morocco (1993-1996) and France (1997-2012). I experienced the sadness of not being able to meet him face to face when he passed away in 2019 in Berlin, where he had lived since 2012. Yes, I was familiar with his works and writings, but meeting such an important figure face-to-face would also be extremely effective.

Kamal Boullata (1942 − August 6, 2019) was a Palestinian artist and art historian. His works were primarily done in acrylic. His work was abstract in style, focusing on the ideas of division in Palestinian identity, separation from homeland. He expressed these ideas through geometric forms as well as through the integration of Arabic words and calligraphy.

Kamal Boullata worked mostly with screen printing. He used calligraphy, particularly Kufic calligraphy, to create colorful, geometric compositions on paper. The artist's works dealt with themes of identity and exile, as in many other Palestinian artists. It is possible to see the traces of Jerusalem, where he spent his childhood, and especially the Dome of the Rock.

Boullata won many awards and research grants throughout his life. The most important include the Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship to research Islamic art in Morocco in 1993 and 1994, and the New York Ford Foundation Research Fellowship to research the roots of Palestinian painting from 1740 to 1940.

Boullata's paintings and screen prints have been exhibited throughout Europe, the USA, France, and the Middle East. His works are exhibited in the British Museum in London; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; New York Public Library, New York; Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah; Khalid Shoman Foundation, Amman; Alhambra Islamic Museum, Granada; Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah; It is included in the collections of Bibliothèque Louis Notari, Monaco and Mathaf (Museum of Modern Arab Art), Doha.

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https://www.barjeelartfoundation.org/artist/palestine/kamal-boullata/

https://www.palquest.org/en/biography/9735/kamal-boullata