Culture
26 December 2023
Fathi Ghabin: A Self-Portrait of the Working-Class
Faris Shomali
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His artworks “possess the raw power of working-class anger—no decadent refinements here;” with these words, artist and art historian Samia Halaby depicts the art of Fathi Ghabin.
Born in 1947, Ghabin was barely a year old when his village, Hiribya, north of Gaza, was forcibly depopulated and destroyed in the thick of the Nakba. The Jabaliya refugee camp is where he and his family’s trek for refuge landed.
In a 1987 interview, Ghabin introduces himself:
I am Fathi, from Jabaliya camp, born in 1947. Life’s harsh conditions cut short my formal education in the sixth grade. That very year, I stepped into labor. Palestinian children are expected to act as men and provide for their families. Amid this, I practiced my hobby—painting... By nineteen, I was married and soon a father to eight.[1]
Portrait of Fathi Ghabin (1987). From the Joss Dray Collection - The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive.
A self-taught artist, Ghabin prefers the intimacy of painting with his fingers over the intermediary of a brush. He paints for eight hours every day from the comfort of his humble home, surrounded by the play, laughter, and shouts of his children.* Popularized through reproductions as posters and postcards, his artwork gained popular attention. Yet, this fame came with another unwanted attention. In 1984, the Israeli occupation forces arrested him and confiscated seven of his artworks, sentencing him to six months in prison and a fine of eighty Jordanian dinars.
In an attempt to have more clarity on Ghabin’s arrest, a Dutch journalist interviewed an Israeli officer:
JOURNALIST. What I want to know about is the imprisonment of Fathi Ghabin.
OFFICER. The painter?
JOURNALIST. The painter, exactly! All the information I have is from Al-Fajr, the Palestinian weekly, so I don’t know if the information this weekly gives is correct. So, I would like to know what was the official reason to imprison this man.
OFFICER. Paintings of Fathi Ghabin were distributed in tens of thousands [of] copies throughout the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and they were used as propagandist means to call the people to get out to the streets and throw stones and demonstrate and break the law. Did you, by any chance, see [any] of those paintings?[2]
Ghabin is most known for his folklore paintings—vivid depictions of farmers and workers in medias res. His figures are captured in motion as they labor, protest, tend to their fields, celebrate, and dance. The raw power of the working-class is there in Ghabin’s artwork, as it is in him.
[1] Fathi Ghabin, “‘Identity’ Angered Them: The Son of the Camp, painting the camp,” Sawt al-Bilad, September 1987.
* As I neared the completion of this piece, I was disheartened to learn that Ghabin has lost one of his sons in the ongoing war on Gaza.
[2] Fathi’s Portrait, directed by Tahseen Muhaisen (2005), 12:29-14:15.
Header Image: Taken in the Jabaliya Palestinian refugee camp in the north of Gaza city, this photograph captures a glimpse of Fathi Ghaban, a Palestinian painter, with his family in their home (1987). From the Joss Dray Collection - The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive.
Taken in the Shati Palestinian refugee camp, a glimpse of two girls standing near a shop selling paintings by the Palestinian artist Fathi Ghabin. (1987). From the Joss Dray Collection - The Palestinian Museum Digital Archive.
Identity by Fathi Ghabin, Oil on Canvas (1980).
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