Growing up in the diaspora in Beirut as the son of two outstanding Palestinian artists – Ismail Shammout and Tamam El-Akhal – who significantly shaped modern Palestinian art, I have since my childhood been confronted more or less consciously with philosophical questions that deal with the themes of home, homeland, and belonging. I had to learn that arts and culture have to belong in order to deliver their message and endure when their creators pass away. I had to learn that arts and culture form the protective mother for nations that write history. And belonging is definitely not restricted to a geographical or physical place but rather allows sharing common thoughts and visions with many others and forming a wide-reaching intellectual horizon. So, belonging clearly forms the ground on which artists stand in order to express the thoughts, feelings, and principles that move them – and so it was with Ismail Shammout.
Ismail had just turned 18 when the Nakba forced my late father and his entire family out of their home in Lydda, Palestine. After a long foot march in the scorching summer heat of 1948, without food or water, they settled down in the refugee camp of Khan Younis. Being a young Palestinian, a refugee, and a highly talented painter who dreamed of becoming an artist, he managed to travel to Cairo and then to Rome to study fine arts in the early 1950s. After that, he moved to Beirut, then to Al-Bireh, then back to Beirut and on to Kuwait, and finally to Amman. He dedicated his entire life to his people, his dreams, and his beloved Palestine and became the perfect ambassador of Palestinian identity, which he proudly and faithfully embodied... READ MORE
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