Finding Palestine in Michigan: On Painter Samia Halaby
Words: Rachel Winter
Credit: Shanti Knight
When people think of Michigan, among many things that come to mind is the state’s history as a home to Arabs. Dearborn is colloquially referred to as the heart of Arab America, and its cultural institutions, such as the Arab American National Museum, document the overlooked stories of Arab Americans. Yet the stories of the Arab diaspora span the state of Michigan—past and present. It was this line of thinking that prompted my journey to uncover the story of the inimitable Palestinian painter Samia Halaby in Michigan.
Samia Halaby: From Jerusalem to Michigan
Halaby was born in Jerusalem in 1936. During the Nakba, Halaby and her family fled Palestine for Lebanon. They settled in Beirut before heading to the United States in 1951. When Halaby recounted her family’s immigration story to me, she mentioned that after arriving in New York by boat — which she described as a great adventure — the family selected Oregon as their new home. However, during their drive, they ran into a cousin in Cincinnati who persuaded them to stay.
Halaby received her BS in Design from the University of Cincinnati in 1959, her MA from Michigan State University (MSU) in 1960, and her MFA from Indiana University in 1963. She went on to have an important career as an educator, including accolades such as the first woman to be full-time faculty in the Art Department at Yale University (though notably, she was never awarded tenure).
Yet in retellings of her biography, many people overlook that Halaby attended MSU from 1959–60; this moment is what first prompted my research. In April of 2022, I visited MSU’s Murray & Hong Special Collections to learn more about Halaby’s time as a student. I was pleasantly surprised to find an album with black and white photos documenting her MA Thesis exhibition, as well as other recently completed paintings that were evidence of her artistic achievements. One of these early paintings – Lilac Bushes (1960) – shows how Halaby worked toward becoming an abstract painter, specifically playing with color and texture.
Image courtesy of Samia Halaby; copyright Samia Halaby.
Halaby’s time at MSU catalyzed decades of creativity and theorization around abstraction. Yet beyond her thesis, there is little archival information remaining about other aspects of Halaby’s experience, such as who her teachers or fellow students were. As such, it is easy to overlook the Michigan roots of one of the most important Palestinian painters of a generation and the significance of her broader artistic practice within our current art historical frameworks.
In the absence of documents and photos, I turned to Halaby with my many questions. In conversation, I found answers. For example, I learned Halaby’s teachers at MSU were the men of American abstraction, like Charles Pollock, Boris Margo, Ralf Henricksen, and John de Martelli. By looking at the aesthetic practices of her teachers, it becomes clearer how Halaby forged an aesthetic path for herself both in dialogue with and in opposition to her teachers, thus providing us new insight into her seven decades of painting. This is perhaps the first, but certainly not the only instance of aesthetic resistance that has defined Halaby’s career. In a broader context, this moment asserts the imperative of oral histories, particularly when researching and documenting the lives and practices of artists who have not been afforded their due.
MSU was not the end of Halaby’s Midwest era. After taking a gap year in Ohio, she went to Indiana University (IU) where she received her MFA in 1963. She studied with artists like William Bailey, James McGarrell, and Harry Engels, whose visual languages were not rooted in abstraction: rather, it was against the dominant artistic pedagogy that Halaby grew as an abstract painter.
After she graduated, she taught in Hawaii (where she had her first exhibition post-graduation) before taking a position at the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Missouri from 1964 to 1967. Notably, Halaby’s painting turned away from abstraction during this period. From 1967 to 1969, Halaby taught at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. There, in her new studio, Halaby was able to paint on a much larger scale for the first time—a grandiosity she is now known for. In 1969, Halaby returned to Indiana University, where she was later awarded tenure. Notably, it was in Indiana that she first had an idea for a form of computer-generated art.
In 1972, Halaby left the Midwest to teach at Yale University, later becoming the first woman to be full-time faculty in the art department. In each place, her visual language shifted, suggesting that place was formative to her aesthetic trajectory and experimentation. Across this 12-year period in the Midwest, Halaby also participated in several small exhibitions. Furthermore, while some institutions hold archival documentation about their faculty and related exhibitions, the greatest piece missing is that of Halaby’s students. I cannot count how many students Halaby taught in the Midwest, though I estimate it was hundreds, if not thousands. These are the stories yet to be uncovered, and perhaps by doing so, more will come to light about the impact of Halaby’s pedagogy on burgeoning artists.
Halaby’s 1989 Solo Exhibition at WMU
Image courtesy of Samia Halaby; copyright Samia Halaby.
After Halaby moved to New York in 1976, she returned to Michigan one more time, which has also been overlooked. From mid-February to early-March 1989, Halaby had a solo exhibition in Gallery II of Sangren Hall at Western Michigan University (WMU) in Kalamazoo. Only one photo of the exhibition remains, which is one held by the artist. With the help of the archivists and librarians at WMU, I was able to find some press about the show that identifies some of the work exhibited. However, the remaining documents do not explain how the show came to be, such as through an application process or an invitation. Such information could help uncover a larger network of artists and relationships in the Midwest, and begin to outline a more nuanced history of art in the Midwest.
One article about this 1989 exhibition, I would argue, is significant to the larger questions raised about archives and documentation. On February 12, 1989 the Kalamazoo Gazette published a short announcement called “Abstract and computer art created, demonstrated here by N.Y. artist.” This was the notice about Halaby’s show at WMU. The article goes on to explain that Halaby would be in Kalamazoo for the opening of “her unusual abstracts and computer-generated paintings.” As part of her activities for the week, the author also notes that Halaby will work on her “unusual painting,” referring mostly to the way the artist created the work on site, which audiences could observe.
The fact that “unusual” occurs twice within the same article, which totals less than a quarter of a page, reads to me as more of a judgment on the work than a proclamation about Halaby’s inventive capacity to create site-specific work and develop a new computer-based art. If in 1989 – 30 years after she began painting – her work was still described by some as “unusual,” I ponder what was said about her work in its earliest days. While Halaby’s artistic practice has pushed the boundaries of art in the United States, it is perhaps this difference that has contributed to the archival gaps for her and many artists like her: if it is unusual, maybe it is not understood, and subsequently, it is not documented or considered for its merit—particularly not within its time.
Misunderstanding Arab Artists
Researchers are rarely surprised when archival information is sparse, missing, or different than expected, as in cases like this, but how this happens remains relevant and important in past and present: the case of the “unusual” paintings offers an insight into this, both for those who are new to the subject and for those who face this persistent problem. Halaby was not the first or only artist from the Arab world to be misunderstood and overlooked. I think too about Palestinian painter Sari Khoury, who lived most of his life in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. An important educator who taught for many years at Central Michigan University, Khoury also worked to develop his own unique abstraction inspired by his heritage. Halaby even wrote about Khoury as part of her effort to document the work of Palestinian artists: she began this initiative because so many Palestinian artists were overlooked in art history. Yet Khoury’s contributions to modern Arab art and Arab American art history remain ripe for us to consider further, as does much of Halaby’s prolific artistic practice, and that of many other Arab American and Arab diaspora artists.
Reading these archives and histories, however, takes on a new meaning when questions of documentation are posed in the face of global cultural destruction. Khoury and Halaby’s shared experiences of exile and displacement were not easy by any means, nor was their rejection from the art world, which they managed to brush off. Yet in a different sense, they were afforded exciting opportunities, and recount many positive learning and teaching experiences, suggesting that there were many triumphs to be celebrated. Yet if such little documentation remains in the best situations and experiences, then what hope remains for the less than ideal circumstances? And what are the opportunities for researchers to urgently develop new archival and documentary practices, along with oral histories, to recover and preserve both the ordinary and the “unusual” moments for their capacity to be radical innovations whose potential has yet to be illuminated?