In one of the most widely recognised images of Palestinian resistance art, an elderly porter, hunched over, carries Jerusalem on his back. Titled Jamal Al Mahamel in Arabic, and better known as Camel of Burdens, the iconic painting captures the weight of displacement, loss and attachment to their homeland of the Palestinian people. Its creator, Palestinian artist Sliman Mansour, was equally iconic and, through his art, kept the daily and historical struggles of the Palestinians in people’s consciousness.
Mansour, one of the defining figures of contemporary Palestinian visual art, died on Monday, August 24, 2026, aged 79. “To the world, he leaves behind a life filled with beauty, memory, and a legacy that will continue to live through all those he touched,” his family said in a statement shared on his official Instagram account.
Art shaped by war
Born in Birzeit, near Ramallah, Mansour grew up at a time when Palestinian identity was being shaped by war, displacement and exile. As Palestinian people, national symbols and even the colours of their flag came under repression, these experiences found their way into his art.
Olive trees, traditional Palestinian attire and embroidery recur throughout his work, alongside images of violence, destruction and displacement.
A particularly striking Mansour painting from 2010, Homeland, captures the dehumanisation faced by Palestinians at checkpoints. Its muted, sombre palette, towering concrete walls and rows of people squeezed into narrow passageways reinforce the sense of confinement and despair.
In a sharp expression of Palestinian resistance, Mansour’s Memory of Places (2009) depicts a man in traditional Palestinian dress standing before a painting of an olive grove. The fact that the olive grove exists only within another painting is poignant: the landscape that represents home, memory and continuity has become something that must itself be remembered and preserved.
The ancient city of Jerusalem, too, appears vividly in his works both as a place and a symbol of what’s lost and what remains.
Preserving art & culture
The resistance in Mansour’s art extended beyond the iconography. He was a co-founder of New Visions during the First Intifada, the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation that lasted from the late 1980s till early 1990s.
Under this, the artists boycotted Israeli art supplies and turned to local materials such as mud and henna.
And in 1994, he co-founded Al-Wasiti Art Centre, in East Jerusalem, to preserve Palestinian art and connect artists living in Palestine to those in exile.
He was also among the first artists to start using the watermelon, a well-known symbol of the Palestinian movement, showcasing resistance against curbs on political art.
