53 oil paintings in a Palestinian exhibit were lost in the 1940s. A new exhibit on display in Brookline reimagines what could have been.
A traveling exhibition titled "The Lost Paintings, A Prelude to Return" is on view at the Brookline Arts Center and Unbound Visual Arts in Brighton through December 17. The show reimagines 53 oil paintings by Palestinian-Lebanese artist Maroun Tomb, which were lost in the chaos of the Nakba and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war after his 1947 exhibition opened in Haifa on the same day the UN adopted the Partition Plan. Curators Rula Khoury, Haidi Motola, and Joëlle Tomb—Maroun's granddaughter—commissioned 53 contemporary artists from Palestine and the diaspora to create new works inspired by the original titles, using mediums including textiles, prints, paintings, sculptures, and video.
