Artist Laila Shawa

Laila Shawa

Artist born in Gaza in 1940. died in London in 2022.

She studied art at the Leonardo Da Vinci Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Cairo. She completed her postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Rome. She has lived in London since 1987. Her oil painting (The Hands of Fatima) is displayed in the British Museum.

Her works reflect the political situation in her country highlighting injustice and persecution. Essentially, she uses thermal screen printing for her painting.

She painted Jerusalem in many different styles, some of which express the tragedy and some of them express the history, heritage and legacy of the city of Jerusalem. When the works of Shawa are presented in Arab or foreign art galleries, the viewer realizes when they sees her artworks that they were produced by Palestinian hands without providing direct details.

In 2013, she participated in the exhibition (R-Pari) in Paris. The international exhibition, which is organized every year in the Grand Palace in Paris, is considered the most important exhibition of modern and contemporary art in France. Moreover,144 artists from twenty Arab and European countries participated in the exhibition. Also, she presented Pop Art paintings that reflect the violence that her people are subjected to.

One of her most famous works is the series (Gaza Walls), which was done in 1994. These works were carried out using thermal screen technology, as their topic was messages of affiliation from the people of Gaza for contemporary art. Also, in 2011 she carried out her series of works called (disposable bodies).

Selected Public Collections

• Bank of Palestine Museum, Ramallah Branch, Palestine
• DIFC, Dubai, UAE
• MATHAF: Arab Museum of Modern Art , Doha, Qatar
• Spazio Brazzà, Moruzzo, Italy
• The Arab Bank Limited, Amman, Jordan
• The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK
• The Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE
• The Benevolent Society, Gaza, Palestine
• The British Museum, London, UK
• The Burrell Collection, Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, Scotland
• The Khaled Shoman Foundation, Amman, Jordan
• The Kuwait Fund, Kuwait City, Kuwait
• The Museum of Modern Art, Glasgow, Scotland
• The NABU Art Museum, Lebanon
• The Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, Amman, Jordan
• The National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
• The National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., USA
• The Palestinian Union of Artists, Beirut, Lebanon
• The Rashad Shawa Cultural Center, Gaza, Palestine
• The TIMOTCA, Las Vegas, USA
• The Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
• The World of Islam Festival Trust, London, UK