Growing Shapes: Aesthetic Insights of an Abstract Painter

Palestine Books, 2017

This book documents a narrow part of painter Samia Halaby’s insights resulting from the practice of actively seeing the world and painting it. It is an explanation of how shapes evolved in her paintings beginning in the early 1980s. These ideas were recorded in a little sketchbook, which started as a reply to a question posed by a friend of the artist. The question was about shape not color and so it is that shape is the focus of this book even though one cannot really separate shape from color in painting as they cannot exist separately.

Drawing the Kafr Qasem Massacre

Schilt Publishing, 2017

The 1956 Kafr Qasem massacre was carried out by the Israeli Border Police under cover of the tripartite attack on Egypt by England, France, and Israel. Based on interviews with survivors, Samia Halaby created a set of documentary drawings on the subject. The emotions of anger and fear leap from every page of this book, enabling the reader to bear witness to the terrible suffering endured by the inhabitants of this small Palestinian village.

Liberation Art of Palestine: Palestinian Painting and Sculpture in the Second Half of the 20th Century

H.T.T.B. Publishers, 2001

Art in Palestine is part of the liberation struggle. In her book Liberation Art of Palestine, Samia A. Halaby puts this art in context, explains its symbols, development and historical roots, and gives important insights into one of the conflicts shaking the world today. Full-color plates in the back of the book represent the work of many of the artists discussed, who are carefully put in their cultural and political context. As Halaby states, "The whole point of this book is to illustrate and explain that the true art of Palestine rests on the Palestinian struggle for liberation."