Nabil Anani – Born in 1943 in Latrun, Palestine, Anani is one of the principal founders of the contemporary Palestinian art movement. He studied Fine Arts at Alexandria University in Egypt in 1969. Upon his return to Palestine, he began his career as an artist and an art teacher at the United Nations College in Ramallah.
Anani pioneered the use of local materials such as leather, henna, natural dyes, papier-mâché, wood, beads, copper, and other materials. Over the past forty years, Anani has built a distinguished catalog of innovative and unique artworks. He has co-authored several books on Palestinian arts and folklore. He held his first exhibition in Jerusalem in 1972 and since then his works have been widely exhibited in solo and group shows in Europe, North America, the Middle East, North Africa, and Japan.
Anani received the first Palestinian National Prize for Visual Arts in 1997 from Yasser Arafat and was the head of the Palestinian Artists League. He played a key role in establishing the first International Academy of Fine Art in Palestine. In 2006, he was awarded the King Abdullah II Arab World Prize for Fine Art.
Anani’s works are included in both private and public international collections, including the Guggenheim Museum in Abu Dhabi, the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, the Jordan National Museum in Amman, the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah, Darat Al Funun in Amman, the Salama Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation in Abu Dhabi, and Dar El-Nimer in Beirut.
