Written by Alessandra Amin Jumana El Husseini was born on April 2nd, 1932, in Jerusalem, where she lived until her family’s forced flight in 1947. El Husseini’s family ultimately settled in...
JUMANA EL HUSSEINI, Palestine (1932 - 2018)
Bio
Written by Alessandra Amin
Jumana El Husseini was born on April 2nd, 1932, in Jerusalem, where she lived until her family’s forced flight in 1947. El Husseini’s family ultimately settled in Lebanon, where, in 1953, the artist began an undergraduate degree in political science at the Beirut College for Women (now the Lebanese American University). An interest in politics came naturally to her, having been born into a prominent family of Palestinian nationalists; her grandfather, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, served as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during the British Mandate and was an avid opponent of both British and Zionist colonial rule. Jumana’s educational path took a different direction when she transferred to the American University of Beirut, where she enrolled in an art class and was encouraged by her teachers to develop her skills. She graduated from AUB in 1957 and participated in her first group exhibition at the Sursock Museum three years later. El Husseini lived and worked in Beirut until the Israeli invasion of 1982, when she relocated to Paris, a city she would call home for the rest of her life.
During the 1960s and 1970s, as the late artist and art critic Kamal Boullata has noted, Beirut’s Palestinian artists generally operated either in the orbit of the PLO in the refugee camps orthe more cosmopolitan world of Beirut’s art galleries. Husseini was a notable exception, bridging the scenes with art that was both politically committed and aesthetically experimental. From the very beginning, Palestine was her primary source of artistic inspiration, and the city of Jerusalem became a recurring theme in her work. Rather than painting the city “realistically,” however, Husseini broke the stone buildings of her youth down to basic, deliberately “naïve” geometric shapes, which she rendered in limited, often cheerful color palettes, occasionally accented with gold. Notably, her depictions of Jerusalem are almost always devoid of people, and their emptiness adds to the dreamlike quality endowed by her strategic use of color and negative space. With celestial and oneiric effects, the artist allows the viewer to gaze at Jerusalem as if looking through her own dreams.
Throughout her career, El Husseini worked in numerous media, from painting and sculpture to ceramics and embroidery. By the early 1970s, Husseini had begun to work in mixed media, combining, for example, oil paint with stitching to create compositions that were uniquely multidimensional and unwilling to acknowledge a border between “fine arts” and “handicrafts.” In Paris, she began to explore more abstract compositions, shifting from her usual array of whites and bright hues to darker, moodier colors and making extensive use of the Arabic language (and forms derived from it). During the late 1980s through the 1990s, Husseini created numerous mixed-media works in which she scratched scribbles, shapes, and words into paint, creating compositions that were at once morose and chaotic; she claimed to see these works as letters to her dead mother, who was buried in Jerusalem and whose grave she thus could not visit.
Though she was unable to return to the city that so inspired her, El Husseini continued to create art well into her old age. She passed away in Paris on April 11th, 2018.
Sources
Artist’s website, http://www.jumanaelhusseini.com
Kamal Boullata, Palestinian Art 1850 to the Present, London: Saqi, 2009
Kamal Boullata, “Artists Re-Member Palestine in Beirut,”Journal of Palestine Studies, v. 32 #4, (summer 2003)
CV
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2004
Galerie Joëlle Mortier Valat, Paris, France
2002
Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan
Al Ma’mal Gallery, Jerusalem, Palestine
Qattan Foundation, Ramallah, Palestine
1993
Anadil Gallery, Jerusalem, Palestine
1991
Argile Gallery, London, U. K.
Shoman Institute, Amman, Jordan
1990
Gallery Etienne Dinet, Paris, France
1989
Soviet Friendship Center, Moscow, USSR
Addison Ripley Gallery, Washington DC, USA
Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA
1987
Tour Exhibition in the United States Arab Cultural Center, San Francisco, USA
Santa Theresa Library, San Jose, USA
Association of Arab Diplomats, American University, Washington DC, USA
Dag Hammershold Gallery, New York, USA
Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, USA
College University, Toronto, Canada
Algonquin College, Ottawa, Canada
1984
Arab Heritage Gallery, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
1981
Redec Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
1979
Dome of Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
1973
Delta Gallery, Rome, Italy
Gallery des Antiquaires, Beirut, Lebanon
1971
Bonn University
Stuttgart University
Staedtische Galerie Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany
1970
American University, Beirut, Lebanon
1968
German Cultural Center, Beirut, Lebanon
German Cultural Center, Tripoli, Lebanon
1965
Woodstock Gallery, London, U. K.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2015
Rituals of Signs and Transitions (1975-1995), Drat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan
2013
Tajreed, CAP, Kuwait, Kuwait
2008
Nabad Gallery, Amman, Jordan
2007
Festival TransMéditerranée Grasse, France
2003
Château Dufresne, Montréal, Canada
Porte d’Amboise, Medieval City, Rhodes Athens
Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece
2002
National Museum, Amman, Jordan
Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan
2001
Chateau Dufresne, Montréal, Canada
2000
Université Paris 13, Villet Aneuse, France
Maison Théâtre et Danse, Epinye sur Seine, France
1999
Agial Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon
Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan
1998
Konstakademien Vastra Galleriet Fredsgatan, Stockholm, Sweden
1997
Beirut University, Beirut, Lebanon
Librairie La Hune, Paris, France
Conservatoire Français Poulenc, Paris, France
Institut de Monde Arabe, Paris, France
1996
Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan
1995
Gwinnett Art Center, Atlanta, USA
Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, USA
China Women’s Conference, Beijing, China
Artothéque de Montréal, Montréal, Canada
1994
The National Museum of Women in the Art, Washington DC, USA
Dudley House-Lehman, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
Wolfson Galleries Community College Miami Dade, USA
Alif Gallery, Washington DC, USA
Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan
Alwasiti Gallery, Jerusalem, Palestine
Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, USA
1993
Réalités Nouvelles au Grand Palais, Paris, France
Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan
1992
Salon de Mai au Grand Palais, Paris, France
1991
Espace Voltaire, Paris, France
1990
Beffroi de Douai, Douai, France
1989
Barbican, London, U.K.
Institut de Monde Arabe, Paris, France
1988
Palace Museum, Vienna, Austria
Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, Japan
1987
Group Exhibition sponsored by Palestinian Women’s Union, Kuwait City, Kuwait
1986
Christian Union Center, Geneva, Switzerland
Arab League, Paris, France
Salle d’Exposition de Sépulcre, Caen, France
Hall d’Honneur de l’Hôtel de Ville, Brest, France
Pavillon le Verdurier, Limoges, France
Salle des Expositions de l’Hôtel de Ville, Carcassonne, France
Galerie du Vestibule de la Salle Arago, Hôtel de Ville, Perpignan, France
Galerie Passerelle et Mathurnin, Tours, France
1985
Palais des Congrès et de la Culture, Lorient, France
Mall Gallery, London, U.K.
1984
Concert House, Stockholm, Sweden
1983
The Friends House, London, U.K.
1982
Kunsternes Hus, Christiansands Kunst Forening, Oslo, Norway
Arab University, Beirut, Lebanon
1981
Armenia
1980
Oriental Art Museum, Moscow, USSR
National Museum of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Ceramic Museum, Saragosse, Spain
Ausstellungs Zentrum Frensektum, Berlin, Germany
Modern Art Museum, Warsaw, Poland
Culture House, Byton, Poland
1979
Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
École de Beaux-Arts, Lisbon, Portugal
United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland
1978
Japanese Society of Afro-Asian Artists, Tokyo, Japan
1975
Exhibition of Arab Artists, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia
1974
First Arab Biennial, Baghdad, Iraq; Exhibition of Arab Artists at the Arab University, Beirut, Lebanon
1973
The Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC, USA
1972
Delta Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon; Labercatia Gallery, Rome, Italy (Won Gold Medallion)
Biennial event, Kuwait City, Kuwait; 10th International of the Youth, Berlin, Germany
1971
Exhibition of Arab Artists, Damascus, Syria
1969
Alexandria Biennial, Alexandria, Egypt
Exhibition of Contemporary Artists, London, U.K.
1967
Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon
1966
Centre Culturel, Paris, France; Centre Culturel, Brussels, Belgium
1964
Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon
1963
Stairs of the American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
1962
Women’s College of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
1960
Sursock Museum, Beirut, Lebanon
Awards and Honors
1972
Gold Medal, Labercatia Gallery, Rome, Italy
1967
Sursock Museum Prize
Collections
Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon
The Khalid Shoman Foundation – Darat al Funun, Amman, Jordan
Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman, Jordan
JUMANA EL HUSSEINI Artwork
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