Bendib, Khalil

Posted Oct 24, 2005      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version Bookmark and Share

Arguably the most visible Muslim Arab fine artist working today in the USA, Mr. Bendib is a resident of Berkeley, CA who grew up in Morocco and Algeria and came to California at age 20 after receiving his Bachelor’s degree in Algiers.

After earning his Master’s at the University of Southern California in 1982, Khalil Bendib proceeded to become both political cartoonist and professional sculptor/ceramicist. In 1987, he worked as editorial cartoonist with the Gannett Newspapers, at the San Bernardino Sun, a position he later resigned to devote himself entirely to his career in the fine arts.

In 1994, Khalil Bendib completed his first major public monument, the “Alex Odeh Memorial Statue,” an over-life size bronze at the Orange County’s seat of government, honoring the regional director of Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee assassinated in his Santa Ana office in 1985, and followed that with “Ode To Diamond Bar,” a nine-foot leaping bronze cougar at the Summit Ridge public park in Diamond Bar, a suburb of Los Angeles.

Among his more recent public artworks, are the Deir Yassin Remembered Memorial Sculpture at the Hobart and Smith Colleges in Upstate New York (bronze on granite,) a 40 feet x40 feet mural for the Arab Cultural Center in San Francisco, (with two other artists,) a Venus and Mars bronze frieze in Walnut Creek, CA, and the GAIA Unveiled wall sculptures in downtown Berkeley. He was also artist-in-residence at the Legion of Honor Museum of Art in San Francisco, in the Rodin gallery, in 2002.

Mr. Bendib’s work has been exhibited and collected on five continents and it graces numerous businesses, homes and gardens in the United States and abroad.

http://www.studiobendib.com

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