Mustafa al-Hallaj

Mustafa al-Hallaj was born in the village of Salama near Jaffa and was expelled to Damascus as a child in 1948. He studied sculpture at the College of Fine Arts in Cairo and printmaking in Luxor, emerging as one of the most prolific and visionary graphic artists in the modern Middle East.

Hallaj's signature achievement was his monumental woodcut print and masonite engraving Improvisations of Life (Irtijalat al-Hayat), spanning an astonishing 114 meters in length and featuring a labyrinthine universe of human-beast hybrids, Canaanite deities, and Palestinian martyrs. In December 2002, when fire broke out in his Damascus studio, he repeatedly ran into the flames to save his artwork, dying of smoke inhalation holding his prints.