Oded Halahmy was born in Baghdad, the start of an artistic and geographical journey that has been integral to his life and work. Halahmy and his family moved to Israel in 1951, and in 1966 he was admitted to St. Martin's School of Art in London, after which he taught for two years at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, Canada, then moved to New York City, where he has been living and sculpting since 1971. His works are in the collection of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, the Hirschhorn Museum in Washington, DC, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, as well as many other museums and public and private collections around the world. The Oded Halahmy Foundation for the Arts was created to fund original artistic expressions that promote a greater cultural understanding of the Middle East, thereby fostering peace and hope around the world. This collection supports and promotes awareness to the important mission and framework of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition's focus on the lasting power of the written word and the arts in support of the free expression of ideas, the preservation of shared cultural spaces, and the importance of responding to attacks, both overt and subtle, on artists, writers, and academics working under oppressive regimes or in zones of conflict, despite the destruction of that literary/cultural content.