Adonis Diaries

Spirit of the Land

Nabil Anani, born 1943 in Latroun, Palestine, is one of the most prominent Palestinian artists working today.

He is considered by many as a key founder of the contemporary Palestinian art movement.
Upon graduating from the faculty of Fine Arts at Alexandria University Egypt in 1969, Anani returned to his native country Palestine
and began a fruitful career as an artist, teacher, and trainer at the UN training college in Ramallah.

Anani held his first exhibition in Jerusalem in 1972 and has since exhibited widely in Europe, North America, the Middle East, North Africa and Japan – both as an individual artist and with groups of his Palestinian contemporaries.

Anani is a multi-talented artist for he is a painter, a ceramicist and a sculptor.

He pioneered the use of local media such as leather, henna, natural dyes, Papier-mâché, wood, beads and copper.
Over the past 4 decades, Anani has built an impressive catalogue of outstanding, innovative and unique art.

Anani was awarded the first Palestinian National Prize for Visual Art in 1997 and became the head of the League of Palestinian Artists in 1998.

Upon retiring from his teaching post in 2003, Anani dedicated much of his time to voluntary pastimes such as handling the League’s activities and playing a key role in the establishment of the first International Academy of Fine Arts in Palestine – with the assistance of the University of Oslo and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Anani also won the prestigious King Abdullah II Arab World Prize for Fine Arts.
“One of the distinguishing features of Nabil Anani’s work is that he combines the skills of a craftsman with the imagination of an artist. ” Dr. Tina Sherwell, 2001