Ismail Shammout
Palestine, b.1930 - 2006
Ismail Shammout was among the refugees who reached Gaza after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War where he lived in a refugee camp. In 1950, he made his way to Cairo and became the first Palestinian to enroll at the College of Fine Arts. Following his graduation in 1954, he arranged in the Egyptian capital, the first Palestinian group exhibition ever. After the exhibition, Shammout went to Italy to study at the Accademia di Belle Arte in Rome (1954-55). He moved to Beirut in 1956, worked for two years with UNRWA and in 1965 was appointed Director of the Arts and National Culture at the Palestine Liberation Organization. Shammout is the first Arab artist to introduce content oriented subjects in his painting, derived from the Palestinian Problem.
