فير زملر غاليري Sfeir-Semler Gallery

Samia Halaby

Samia Halaby (b.1936 in Jerusalem) is a Palestinian-American artist, and scholar living and working in New York. Halaby is a painter who was educated in the 1950s in the American Midwest, at a time when abstract expressionism was popular. While her work is very much in line with American art movements she evolved with, it is consciously enriched by the history of pictorial expression worldwide. Her oeuvre is today central to the study of abstraction within both global and Arabic visual language. Read more

In her practice, she methodically studies the textures, surfaces, and colours of her surroundings, through the prism of her ongoing theoretical studies. Looking at the effect of light on the aspect of objects around her, or creating illusions of roundness on plane surfaces, she continuously investigates how the human eye records the world: she pays special attention to how we see our surrounding while moving, how surfaces seem to expand and contract as we pass them on the street, or how we react to sudden noises that capture our full attention. In the mid-1980s, her time as a visiting artist at the University of Hawaii marks a turning point in her exploration of motion. The constant flux she tries to capture on canvas pushes her to break free from the traditional rectangular fabric. Playing with time, space, and movement in her work, she produces large installations that extend beyond the canvas edges, shaped and cut-out canvases, three-dimensional mobiles, and unconventionally large paintings that force the viewer to walk alongside them. Using the most advanced tools available to her at the time, Halaby teaches herself coding and starts in 1986 to program kinetic paintings on an amiga computer, even coding sound into several pieces. These experimentations with computer-generated visuals naturally evolve into the Kinetic Painting Program, through which she transforms the keyboard of her PC into a live digital painting instrument.

In over six decades Halaby has produced an immense body of work and is a very particular, innovative figure within her generation of artists. Understanding what parts of a painting the eye will first see, and how our mind will record the visual, she constantly foregrounds works and techniques and, in retrospect, was at the avant-garde of artistic production throughout her career.

As an independent scholar she has contributed to the documentation of Palestinian art of the twentieth century. Her writings on art history, pedagogy, and aesthetics have also appeared in numerous publications over the last three decades. As an educator, Halaby introduced a groundbreaking undergraduate studio art program to art departments throughout the Midwest and was the first full-time female associate professor at the Yale School of Art for nearly a decade.

In 2025, Samia Halaby was honoured the MUNCH Award for artistic freedom. In 2024, the jury of the Biennale Arte in Venice awarded Halaby a Special Mention in recognition of her longstanding work.

1/6Paradise Gardens, 1985, oil on canvas, 76.2 × 101.3 cm
2/6Samia Halaby, Constructivist 10, 1986, kinetic painting programmed on an Amiga computer, 1' 49''
3/6Samia Halaby, Weavings, 1987, kinetic painting coded on an Amiga computer, 32''
4/6Samia Halaby, Milky Pearly, 1999, oil on linen, 106.5 × 122 cm
5/6Samia Halaby, Mondrian Boogie Woogie, 2016, acrylic on jute, 190.5 × 264 cm
6/6Samia Halaby, Between Time and Light, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 149.5 × 446.5 cm 

Selected Press

Gallery Exhibitions

Exhibitions Beyond

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2026

  • Samia Halaby: Kinetic Paintings, SFMoMA: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA

2025

  • Abstract in Motion, Sfeir-Semler Downtown, Beirut, Lebanon

  • Hyundai Card First Look: Samia Halaby, MoMA: Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

2024

  • Eye Witness, MSU Broad Art Museum, Michigan, USA

  • Fragments of time - paintings & digital works, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Germany

2023

  • de-coding colors, 1982-2022, Sfeir-Semler Karantina, Beirut, Lebanon

  • Lasting Impressions: Samia Halaby, Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah, UAE

2017

  • Documentary Drawings of the Kafr Qasem Massacre, Birzeit University Museum, Ramallah, Palestine

2015

  • Five Decades of Painting and Innovation, Beirut Exhibition Center, Beirut, Lebanon

2006

  • A Useful Magnificent Language: The Work of Samia A. Halaby, Tompkins County Public Library, Ithaca, New York, USA

2000

  • Sakakini Art Center, Ramallah, Palestine

1995

  • Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan

1983

  • Housatonic Museum, Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA

1972

  • Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Selected Group Exhibitions

2026

  • In Absence and in Presence: Works from the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection, Aranya Art Center, Qinhuangdao, China (forthcoming)

  • New Humans: Memories of the Future, New Museum, New York, USA (forthcoming)

  • we refuse_d, M HKA: Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium

  • Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA

  • In Attunement, The Dubai Collection, Dubai, UAE

  • Arduna, Our Land, Contemporary Art Museum in AlUla, in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou and the French Agency for AlUla Development, AlUla, Saudi Arabia

  • In Interludes and Transitions, Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale, JAX District, Diriyah, Saudi Arabia

2025

  • Winter Light, Southbank Centre, London, UK

  • I Once Had a Day, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE

  • ELECTRIC DREAMS. Art & Technology Before the Internet, organized by Tate Modern and OGR Torino, OGR Torino, Turin, Italy

  • we refuse_d, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar

  • Geometric Abstraction, B&M Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts and Music, Athens, Greece

  • SILA - All That is Left to You, Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE

  • Maknana: An Archaeology of New Media Arts in the Arab World, Diriyah Art Futures, Diriyah, Riyadh

  • Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing. 1960-1991, Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier, Vienna, Austria

  • Flesh Flowers, Aïshti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon

2024

  • ELECTRIC DREAMS. Art & Technology Before the Internet, Outernet and Tate Modern, London, UK

  • Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960-1991, MUDAM, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

  • Foreigners Everywhere, 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy

  • Shared Horizons, 15th Bienal de la Habana, Havana, Cuba

2023

  • Grounding Light, Manar Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE

  • Small World, Taipei Biennial, Taipei, Taiwan

2022

  • Natasha, Singapore Biennale 2022, Singapore

  • Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, Block Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA

2021

  • Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, USA

  • Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Boston, USA

2020

  • Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s, NYU Grey Art Gallery, New York, USA

2019

  • Intimate Terrains: Representations of a Disappearing Landscape, The Palestinian Museum, Birzeit, Palestine

  • Grand Opening, The Palestine Museum, Woodbridge, Connecticut, USA

  • Between two rounds of fire, the exile of the sea, Katzen Art Center, American University Museum, Washington DC, USA

  • Jerusalem Lives (Tahya Al Quds), The Palestinian Museum, Birzeit, Palestine

  • Enfolding and Unfolding: Geometric Abstraction in Motion, School of Visual Arts, New York, USA

2016

  • This Sea is Mine, 3rd Qalandiya International Biennial, Qalandiya, Palestine

2015

  • Rituals of Signs and Transitions (1975 – 1995), Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan

  • Self: Portraits of Artists in Their Absence, National Academy Museum, New York, USA

2014

  • Seeing Through Light: Selections from the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Collection, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE

2009

  • Palestine: La création dans tous ses états (Palestine: Creativity in all its Generations), Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France

2007

  • Keep Hope Alive, The Olive Project, traveling exhibition: Ethnographic and Art Museum, Birzeit University, Birzeit, Palestine; Al Hoash Gallery, Jerusalem, Palestine; Japan Bank Building, Hiroshima, Japan; Maruki Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

2003

  • Made in Palestine, Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, Texas, USA

  • Breaking the Veils, UNESCO, Paris, France; Rhodes, Greece; Athens, Greece

2001

  • Couleur Palestine (Rhythms from Palestine), Le musée du Château Dufresne, Montreal, Canada

1998

  • Palestinian Art, The Royal Academy of Art, Stockholm, Sweden

1994

  • Forces of Change, National Museum of Women, Washington D.C., USA

1991

  • Digitized and Manipulated, Sangre De Cristo Arts Center, Pueblo, Colorado, USA

  • Art And Algorithm, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis, USA

1990

  • Hilo International Exhibition Works on Paper, University of Hawaii, Hilo, USA

1989

  • Tercero Bienal de la Habana '89, Havana, Cuba

1985

  • TAMARIND: 25 Years 1960-1925, University Art Museum, University of New Mexico, New Mexico, USA

1982

  • Palestinske Kunstnere (Palestinian Artists), Kunstnernes Hus, Chiristiansands Kunstforening, Christiansands, Norway

1981

  • Palestinske Kunstnere (Palestinian Artists), Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, Norway

1979

  • Contemporary Arab Artists II, Iraqi Cultural Center Gallery, London, UK

1977

  • Contemporary American Printmaking, Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

  • Contemporary American Prints, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

1975

  • Tamarind Prints, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., USA

  • Recent Acquisitions, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA

1974

  • Nine Connecticut Artists, The Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, Connecticut, USA

1973

  • American Drawing, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

1969

  • Six Faculty Artists, Indiana University Museum, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

1966

  • Art in The Embassies Program, Department of State & The National Gallery, Washington D.C., USA

1965

  • Art of Two Cities - Kansas City and Minneapolis (Purchase Award), Time-Life Gallery, New York, USA

Performances and Screenings

2026

  • Performing Abstraction: Samia Halaby with Members of the Kronos Quartet, SFMoMA: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA

  • Performance at the Making Their Mark Foundation Women's History Month Symposium, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C., USA (forthcoming)

2025

  • Kinetic Painting, in collaboration with Jana Saleh, Sfeir-Semler Karantina, Beirut, Lebanon

  • Samia Halaby: Performing Abstraction, Tate Modern, London, UK

  • Samia Halaby: Performing Abstraction, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK

  • Samia Halaby, Kevin Nathaniel Hylton - Kinetic Painting Group, Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland

2024

  • Kinetic Painting with Samia Halaby, in collaboration with Amir ElSaffar, e-flux, New York, USA

2023

  • Kinetic Painting Group, Manar Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE

  • Kinetic Painting Jam Session: Samia Halaby and Julian Abraham "Togar", Taipei Biennale, Taipei, Taiwan

2019

  • Kinetic Painting Group, Bernie Wohl Auditorium, New York, USA

1998

  • Kinetic Painting Group, The Williamsburg Art & Historical Center, Brooklyn, New York, USA

  • Kinetic Painting Group, Lincoln Center, New York, USA

1997

  • Kinetic Painting Group, Philadelphia College of Art, Philadelphia, USA

  • Kinetic Painting Group, Darat Al Funun, Amman, Jordan

1994

  • Kinetic Painting Group, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York, USA

Awards

2025

  • MUNCH Award for artistic freedom, Oslo, Norway

2024

  • Special Mention at La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy

  • Takreem Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, Monaco

Public Collections

Publications

2024

  • Halaby, Samia. "Centers of Energy", edited by Elliot Josephine Leila Reichert, Rachel Winter, and Samia Halaby. Munich: Hirmer Publishers

  • MSU Broad Art Museum. "Samia Halaby: Eye Witness" [exhibition catalogue]. Michigan: Michigan State University.

2023

  • Sharjah Art Museum. "Lasting Impressions: Samia Halaby" [exhibition catalogue]. Sharjah: Sharjah Art Museum.

2017

  • Halaby, Samia. "Growing Shapes: Aesthetic Insights of an Abstract Painter". Palestine Books.

  • Halaby, Samia. "Drawing the Kafr Qasem Massacre." Amsterdam: Schilt Publishing.

2014

  • Halaby, Samia. "Samia Halaby: Five Decades of Painting and Innovation", Edited by Maymanah Farhat. London: Booth-Clibborn Editions.

2006

  • Halaby, Samia and Inea Bushnaq. "Inea Bushnaq and Samia Halaby." Beirut: Fine Arts Publishing.

Education

1963

  • MFA, Painting, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

1960

  • MA, Painting, Michigan State University, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

1959

  • BS, Design, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA