Mustafa al-Hallaj (1938 – 17 December 2002) ( ar, مصطفى الحلاج) was a Palestinian-born visual artist, primarily working as a graphic designer, painter, and printmaker. Al-Hallaj was a pioneer in the Arab art world, known as an "icon of contemporary Arab graphic arts." His work was often devoted to his lost homeland, Palestine, and he is also said to have tried to turn Palestine into the form and content of his artistic school.

Biography

He was born in Salama in the

Jaffa Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo ( he, יָפוֹ, ) and in Arabic Yafa ( ar, يَافَا) and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is known for its association with the b ...

region of Mandatory Palestine. After the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...

, al-Hallaj and his family ended up in

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

where he completed his higher education in 1964. He studied sculpture at the College of Fine Arts in Cairo and attended the Luxor Atelier for Postgraduate Studies. His art included paintings,

graphics Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture ...

murals A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spanish ...

, illustrations, cover designs and etchings, with specializations in graphic art and sculpture. He lived in Beirut, Lebanon and Damascus,

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

. Hallaj contributed to defining the ''fan al-muqawama'' (or, "the art of resistance"). He lost 25,000 of his prints in Israeli attacks on Beirut during the

1982 Lebanon War The 1982 Lebanon War, dubbed Operation Peace for Galilee ( he, מבצע שלום הגליל, or מבצע של"ג ''Mivtsa Shlom HaGalil'' or ''Mivtsa Sheleg'') by the Israeli government, later known in Israel as the Lebanon War or the First L ...

but managed to save the wood and masonry cuts he used to make them. Hallaj was a founding member of the trade union committee of the General Union of Palestinian Writers and Journalists, and a member of the Managing Committee of the General Union of Palestinian Abstract Artists in Syria. He helped lay the foundation for the establishment of an art gallery in Damascus which at its opening in 1987 was dedicated to the memory of Naji al-Ali Damascus.

Works

Hallaj's work is "inspired by ancient Canaanite legends, folk tales, and Palestinian cultural icons, and is a sequence of pictorial narratives that had reached 114 meters at the time of his death, summarizing the history of the Palestinian people from the 11th century BC to the present." Entitled ''Improvisations of Life'', this work is 114 meters long. It portrays visual memories and recollections, and a record of civilization dating back 10000 years – a mix of myth and fertility with the intifada of the Palestinians. ''Self-portrait as Man, God, the Devil'' is a Masonite-cut print by al-Hallaj wide and high in which he represents himself with a long, white beard, a peacock pattern of white hair and enlarged, and almond-shaped eyes staring in awe at the events depicted. Tex Kerschen calls it

"... a master work, a continuum of fantastic and folkloric imagery that spans ancient and modern times. He juxtaposes a vast and often idiosyncratic menagerie of symbols — bulls, camel men, birds, lizard-like creatures and fish, with fantastic landscapes and episodes of ancient and modern Palestinian life ... Scenes from ''Al Nakba'' and the universal history of human oppression, such as mass hangings and forced marches, spill into representations that draw from his extensive erudition and his own syncretic imagination." a

Al-Hallaj successfully rescued this work from an electrical fire in his home studio, but he died after running in to save other works. He was buried in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus. Al-Hallaj has won several local and international awards and prizes.

Biography

Works

References

Further reading