Samia Halaby is a pioneering Palestinian artist, born in Jerusalem in 1936. Displaced with her family during the 1948 Nakba at the age of eleven, she relocated to the United States in 1951. She was educated in the American Midwest during the peak of Abstract Expressionism, a movement where female painters were often marginalized.
Halaby earned an MFA in painting from Indiana University and began her career in the early 1960s. She believes new approaches to painting can transform perception and thought, extending beyond aesthetics to inspire innovation in teaching, technology, and society. This philosophy has driven her to experiment across diverse media, including drawing, printmaking, computer-based kinetic art, and unstretched canvas paintings.
Halaby’s art has been exhibited internationally and is held in private collections worldwide. Her work is featured in major museum collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York and Abu Dhabi), the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Institut du Monde Arabe, and Birzeit University in Ramallah. She is represented by Ayyam Gallery in Beirut and Dubai.