The Lost Paintings: a Prelude to Return brings the forefront of contemporary Palestinian art to the P21 Gallery in London. After a successful tour in Montreal, Boston and Belfast, we are honoured to display the work of 53 artists from Palestine and the diaspora in London, and offer compelling programming around it. Tracing the memory of paintings lost to the Nakba, the exhibition examines loss and destruction on one hand, and the power of imagination and art in shaping new futures on the other.
The Lost Paintings artists come together across generations and borders to reimagine the missing works of Maroun Tomb, a Palestinian-Lebanese artist, and his 1947 exhibition in Haifa, that was lost amid the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians during the Nakba. Drawing on the minimal surviving information of Tomb’s last exhibition in Palestine before his forced exile, the contemporary artists’ responses navigate across painting, photography, multi-media, sculpture and video to move between what was, what is and what could be. They do not reconstruct the past, but reclaim it through fragments, gestures, and stories passed across generations.
From Haifa to Gaza, landscapes are revisited not as backgrounds, but as living witnesses; still life is rendered unstable, objects and places teetering between presence and disappearance. Through exploration of colonial violence and its consequences on multiple generations, the exhibition creates a space where memory becomes collective resistance and an act of return, not to what was, but to what still calls.
“We are very excited to bring The Lost Paintings to London after successful exhibitions in Montreal, Boston and Belfast. The artists featured in this project use various mediums to uniquely express and narrate their stories in connection to the 1948 Nakba. As such, it is a great opportunity for the audience to get a first hand encounter and learn about the turbulent history of Palestine through these rich and versatile perspectives.”
Rula Khoury, lead curator.
Curator/s
Rula Khoury, Joëlle Tomb & Haidi Motola
Exhibition Start Date: 16/04/2026
Exhibition End Date: 29/05/2026
Artists
Noor Abed · Abed Abdi · Hala Abo Freh · Ghassan Yousef Abulaban · Tala Abunuwar · Ruba Al-Faraouna · Dalia Ali · Faten Abu Ali · Ola Alkrenawi · Sama Alshaibi · Aysha E Arar · Doaa Badran · Nasrin Abu Baker · Joanna Barakat · Jacqueline Béjani · Doris Bittar · Benji Boyadgian · Muhammad Nour ElKhairy · Faissal El-Malak · Ashraf Fawakhry · Michael Halak · Aya Abu Hawash · Raed Issa · Iman Jabrah · Khaled Jarrar · Juhaina Habibi Kandalaft · Mado Kelleyan · Dina Nazmi Khorchid · Bayan Kiwan · Noel Maghathe · Yara Kassem Mahajena · Maria Saleh Mahameed · Souad Naser Makhoul · Sliman Mansour · Sara Mraish · Zohdy Qadry · Antoine Elias Raffoul · Ridikkuluz · Fatima Abu Roomi · Steve Sabella · Razan AlSalah · Nora Sayyad · Farid Abu Shakra · Samah Shihadi · Nardeen Srouji · Dalleh Tarabey · Fouad Tomb · Lorena Tomb · Sandra Tomb · Mary Tuma · Sharif Waked · Ronen Zien · Manar Zuabi
P21 Gallery, email: [email protected], Tel. 020 7121 6190
Generously supported by: Kone Foundation, public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, The Finnish Institute UK and Ireland and private donors.
Admission: Free
Opening week events:
Wednesday, 15 April, 6pm: exhibition opening with curators and artists present
Thursday, 16 April, 6pm: guided tour with co-curator Joëlle Tomb
Friday, 17 April, 5.30pm: guided tour with co-curator Joëlle Tomb
Friday, 17 April, 6.30pm: Gallery talk with curators, Rula Khoury, Joëlle Tomb and Haidi Motola, and artists Aya Abu Hawash, Faissal El-Malak and Antoine Elias Raffoul.
For more about The Lost Paintings project: www.thelostpaintings.com
