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Lot Essay
This exceptional Self-Portrait with Words by Huguette Caland originates from the collection of the artist’s former assistant and studio manager, offering a rare opportunity to acquire a significant work that embodies Caland’s distinctive artistic vision. Executed in acrylic and pen, the composition is both visually striking and conceptually layered. The monochrome palette emphasises contrasts and contours, while the textured surface reveals a tactile engagement with materiality. The image is abstract yet suggestive of the human form, fragmented and reassembled through flowing lines and carefully inscribed words that weave across the canvas like threads of memory. The pen work interlaces with the painted forms, creating a rhythmic dialogue between image and text, surface and depth. This interplay invites the viewer to contemplate not only the physical presence of the self but also its linguistic and cultural constructions, thus evoking intimate yet universal meditation on identity.
Self-Portrait with Words fits seamlessly into Caland’s broader oeuvre, which defied aesthetic, social, and political conventions by engaging with themes of diaspora, loss, selfhood, and collectivity. Throughout her career, Caland drew extensively from her deep-rooted cultural heritage—fusing influences such as Palestinian tatreez embroidery, and the symbolism of Phoenician and Byzantine visual cultures—with her cosmopolitan experience. This fusion created a complex tapestry of forms and motifs, often grounded in abstraction but always steeped in both personal and collective histories. Her work’s focus on lettered forms and symbolic language reflects her lifelong fascination with communication, identity, and cultural memory. This self-portrait is a powerful example of how Caland’s material experimentation and abstract vocabulary functioned as vehicles for exploring notions of belonging, community, and the construction of identity.
Born in Beirut in 1931, Huguette Caland studied at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts before embarking on a diverse international career that spanned painting, drawing, sculpture, and performance. Despite her cosmopolitan life—living and working in Paris, Los Angeles, and Beirut—her art remained deeply connected to her roots and personal history. In 2025, Caland was honoured with her first major European retrospective, Huguette Caland: A Life in a Few Lines, at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, cementing her legacy as a trailblazing figure in contemporary art. Her works are held in prominent collections worldwide, including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; San Diego Museum of Art; Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Tate Modern, London.
Self-Portrait with Words fits seamlessly into Caland’s broader oeuvre, which defied aesthetic, social, and political conventions by engaging with themes of diaspora, loss, selfhood, and collectivity. Throughout her career, Caland drew extensively from her deep-rooted cultural heritage—fusing influences such as Palestinian tatreez embroidery, and the symbolism of Phoenician and Byzantine visual cultures—with her cosmopolitan experience. This fusion created a complex tapestry of forms and motifs, often grounded in abstraction but always steeped in both personal and collective histories. Her work’s focus on lettered forms and symbolic language reflects her lifelong fascination with communication, identity, and cultural memory. This self-portrait is a powerful example of how Caland’s material experimentation and abstract vocabulary functioned as vehicles for exploring notions of belonging, community, and the construction of identity.
Born in Beirut in 1931, Huguette Caland studied at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts before embarking on a diverse international career that spanned painting, drawing, sculpture, and performance. Despite her cosmopolitan life—living and working in Paris, Los Angeles, and Beirut—her art remained deeply connected to her roots and personal history. In 2025, Caland was honoured with her first major European retrospective, Huguette Caland: A Life in a Few Lines, at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, cementing her legacy as a trailblazing figure in contemporary art. Her works are held in prominent collections worldwide, including Museum of Modern Art, New York; Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio; San Diego Museum of Art; Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Tate Modern, London.