Abed Abdi

Abed Abdi was born in 1942 in Haifa

Abdi was born in February 1942 in the Wadi Salib neighborhood of Haifa. His mother's uncle, Abd al-Rahman al-Hajj, was mayor of Haifa from 1920 to 1927. During the War of Independence he left the city with his mother and sisters and lived in refugee camps in Lebanon and Damascus.

In 1952 he returned to Israel to rejoin his father. He joined the Communist Party and learned from social realist artists linked to it. In 1962 he held his first exhibition in Tel Aviv and became the first Arab member of the painters and sculptors association in Haifa.

With a scholarship, he studied at the art academy in Dresden, Germany, where he specialized in graphics, murals and environmental art. He married Judit, a Hungarian student, and the couple has 3 children.

In 1972 he returned to Haifa and worked as an illustrator and graphic designer for Arabic publications. He illustrated books by writers such as Emile Habibi and Samih al-Qasim. He built a 1977 sculpture for Land Day of 1976 and painted murals in Haifa, Jaffa and Nazareth.

Since 1985 he has taught at the Arab College of Education in Haifa. He runs a studio and gallery in Wadi Nisnas and heads an arts association. He was named a distinguished citizen of Haifa in 2010.