Etel Adnan

Etel Adnan is an American‐Lebanese painter and writer whose expressive, poetic landscapes offer intimate visions of both American and Middle Eastern scenes. Her knowledge of philosophy of art emerges in her body of work where vibrant stretches of colour become concise but deeply humane visions of hope.

Adnan was born in 1925 in Beirut, Lebanon into a multi‐cultural and multi‐lingual family. She studied philosophy in France as well as the United States where she started teaching philosophy of art in 1952. Adnan also worked as a poet, journalist and novelist, publishing her influential novel ‘Sitt Marie‐Rose’, a classic of war literature, in 1977.

It was in the 1960s that Adnan, settling in Sausalito, California, began to paint. Her need to explore art forms other than writing was prompted not only by her interest in visual language but also by her decision to stop writing in French, a way of politically distancing herself from the concurrent Algerian War. Adnan’s first works constitute an initial exploration of the intimate, metaphysical life of colours, which, for her, exist as entities in themselves.

Adnan’s art mimics the nomadic nature of her world, fluidly moving between disciplines and engaging with diverse elements of life. Notable inspirations include the exchanges between Arab and American cultures. In the 1960s she began assimilating Arabic calligraphy into her art, following the lead of ‘hurufiyya’, a group of traditional Islamic calligraphists. Such rejection of established Western aesthetics and the quest for original forms of expression reflected Adnan’s commitment to Eastern culture, media and techniques.

Adnan’s paintings are mature and ascetic, concise but meaningful. Her subjects seem to persistently return to the outside world, interpreted through a personal but insightful lens. While living in Sausalito, Adnan began to focus on the surrounding landscape, particularly the neighbouring Mount Tamalpais. The mountain, which she drew and painted incessantly, became a constant point of reference. These paintings record the landscape’s varying dynamics and moods over different periods of time, constituting meditations on the relationship between nature and art.

Always concerned with questions of personal memory and cultural heritage, Adnan created an important body of work on Lebanese landscapes. These landscapes are made of wide expanses of warm, elemental colours, bringing the point of view nearer to the subject and opening the canvas up through the thick paste of their palette. The granular texture of Adnan’s colours seems to reflect the tactile experience of interacting with nature, the earth and its substances.

Adnan also produces works known as accordion‐fold books or ‘leporellos’. These artworks, on which Adnan transcribes poems and sketches landscapes, combine her parallel practices of painting and writing. Like foldable screens, they can be extended into space, becoming autonomous art objects.

After having been largely overlooked by the mainstream art world, Adnan’s work is now featured in collections of major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the British Museum in London. She has also become the subject of important exhibitions, including a retrospective at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in 2018.

Such international recognition demonstrates the success of Adnan’s quest for an intimate pictorial language. In between her relinquishment to lyricism and rigorous social engagement, Adnan’s art is ultimately dedicated to life and transformation.