BERLIN, Friday, August 09, 2019 (WAFA) – The family of Kamal Boullata, who passed away in Berlin at the age of 77, has declared that it seeks to bury him in his birthplace, Jerusalem.

Boullata’s family said in a statement, posted on the Facebook page of the Lebanon-based Palestinian novelist Elias Khoury, that Kamal wished to be buried at the family grave in the Orthodox Cemetery on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

“At this moment, we are awaiting an answer from the Israeli occupation authorities regarding our right to lay Kamal to rest in his birthplace, Jerusalem. If permission is not granted by the Israeli occupation authorities, Berlin will be his resting place,” the family said.

The Boullata family noted that if Kamal is to be buried in Berlin, the funeral will be held at St. Georgios Antiochian Orthodox Church in Berlin on Thursday, August 15 at 10:30 AM.

Boullata, a Palestinian artist, historian, and writer who drew from his interests in light and transparency, conditions of creation and exile, and Byzantine and Islamic aesthetic culture, literature, and history for his geometrically abstract paintings, died at the age of 77.

He was born in Jerusalem, Palestine, and studied at the Academy of Rome and the Corcoran Museum School in Washington, DC, after being exiled from Jerusalem following the 1967 occupation.

In 1993, he received a Fulbright fellowship to conduct field research on Islamic art in Morocco and Spain, and in 2001, he was awarded a Ford Foundation grant to research post-Byzantine painting in Palestine.

He has authored four books on Palestinian art, including Belonging and Globalisation (2008) and Palestinian Art: From 1850 to the Present (2009), and has edited books on modern poetry and contemporary culture. From 2012 to 2013, Boullata was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin.