“Samia Halaby discusses her 60-year artistic career, how she’s overcome the challenges she faced as a woman, and how she’s blended the art and tech world in her pieces.”
A Pioneer in the Global Art Scene | Talks at Google, 2021
“A portrait of the renowned abstract painter Samia Halaby, shot over two years in her Tribeca studio.”
Film by Munir Atalla
“Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s explores mid-20th-century abstract art from North Africa, West Asia, and the Arab diaspora—a vast geographic expanse that encompasses diverse cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious backgrounds.”
The Block Art Museum
“Abstract painter and influential scholar of Palestinian art Samia Halaby (b. 1936, Jerusalem) describes her creative process, followed by a conversation between the artist and curator Sasha Kalter-Wasserman. Recognized as a pioneer of contemporary abstraction, Halaby has paintings in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. Her practice is rooted in the conviction that abstract painting reflects the principles of motion in nature and has the power to inspire technology with new visual insights.”
Guggenheim Museum, 2019
“Samia Halaby is a world-renowned painter who purchased a Commodore Amiga 1000 in 1985 at the tender age of 50 years old. She taught herself the BASIC and C programming languages to create kinetic paintings” with the Amiga and has been using the Amiga ever since.”
Bill Winters, 2018
“After nearly 60 years of identifying the essentials of abstraction, the great contemporary Palestinian artist Samia Halaby’s latest work is now guided by intuition.”
Maymanah Farhat, 2017
“Born in Jerusalem in 1936, Samia Halaby is a leading abstract painter and an influential scholar of Palestinian art. Although based in the United States since 1952, Halaby is recognized as a pioneer of contemporary abstraction in the Arab world.”
Wall Street International, 2017
“In the weeks leading up to her 80th birthday in December, abstract painter Samia Halaby was busy preparing for back-to-back solo exhibitions while also working towards the release of two new publications. At this late stage in her celebrated career, Halaby shows no signs of slowing down—if anything she seems to have increased her creative output.”
Maymanah Farhat, 2017
samia halaby 