Etel Adnan juggled writing and visual arts from a young age. She moved to Paris when she was 24 and completed a degree in Philosophy at the Sorbonne. She continued her postgraduate studies at Berkeley and Harvard in the United States, and taught philosophy at the Dominican College of San Rafael in California from 1958 to 1972. In 1977, her novel Sitt Marie-Rose was published in Paris and won the ‘France-Pays Arabes’ Award.
Her painting reflects the landscapes that were the backdrop to her life, such as the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. She obsessively returned to paint Mount Tamalpais, which she could see from her studio in Sausalito (California) and which had been her subject since 1960. She used bright, flat, contrasting colours in her small paintings. She applied the pigment directly using a palette knife, following the artists of the early avant-garde movements, such as Paul Cézanne and Paul Klee, in a language that succinctly reflects the experience of capturing the landscape on canvas to achieve a timeless, metaphysical communion with the beauty of nature.
It took some time for her visual art to be recognised internationally, but she was selected for Documenta 13 (Kassel, Germany, 2012). Her work was then exhibited at events including the Whitney Biennial (New York, 2014). She had solo shows at the Museum der Moderne (Salzburg, Austria, 2014) and at the Mathaf - Arab Museum of Modern Art (Doha, Qatar, 2014). In 2014 Etel Adnan was made a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.
Etel Adnan juggled writing and visual arts from a young age. She moved to Paris when she was 24 and completed a degree in Philosophy at the Sorbonne. She continued her postgraduate studies at Berkeley and Harvard in the United States, and taught philosophy at the Dominican College of San Rafael in California from 1958 to 1972. In 1977, her novel Sitt Marie-Rose was published in Paris and won the ‘France-Pays Arabes’ Award.
Her painting reflects the landscapes that were the backdrop to her life, such as the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. She obsessively returned to paint Mount Tamalpais, which she could see from her studio in Sausalito (California) and which had been her subject since 1960. She used bright, flat, contrasting colours in her small paintings. She applied the pigment directly using a palette knife, following the artists of the early avant-garde movements, such as Paul Cézanne and Paul Klee, in a language that succinctly reflects the experience of capturing the landscape on canvas to achieve a timeless, metaphysical communion with the beauty of nature.
It took some time for her visual art to be recognised internationally, but she was selected for Documenta 13 (Kassel, Germany, 2012). Her work was then exhibited at events including the Whitney Biennial (New York, 2014). She had solo shows at the Museum der Moderne (Salzburg, Austria, 2014) and at the Mathaf - Arab Museum of Modern Art (Doha, Qatar, 2014). In 2014 Etel Adnan was made a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.