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拍品專文
“I would like to speak to you of the sea, of its patience. Of the sun entangled with her. To tell you of the brass deafened by the waters.”
— Etel Adnan
Untitled is a brilliant example of Etel Adnan’s late work, painted in 2019. Throughout her life, Adnan returned again and again to the memory of the landscape through both painting and poetry. From Mount Tamalpais to the mountains of Athens and the coastlines of Izmir, she found in the sun, sea, and mountains an enduring muse.
In her distinctive visual language, Adnan distills these landscapes into elemental forms, like after-images of a vivid experience. Her process of repeatedly painting the same landscapes differently reveals her view of the natural world not as fixed, but as fluid and ever-changing: a memory in motion.
In this particular work, Adnan’s beloved sun rests warmly above. Her mountains, rendered in interlocking shades of peach, green, and yellow, flank either side of an azure sea. Sandy tones along the lower edge of the painting suggest that Adnan is standing at the shore, overlooking the mountain in this remembered moment.
Of Greek and Syrian heritage, Adnan was born in Beirut in 1925. She studied at the Sorbonne in Paris before relocating to California, where she taught philosophy at Dominican College. Moving between several worlds, Adnan led a nomadic life shaped by multiple languages and cultures. She often said her paintings were her only true home.
Adnan’s solo exhibition has been held in institutions across the world, including at Serpentine, London; Pera Art Museum, Istanbul; Aspen Art Museum, Colorado; MUDAM, Luxembourg; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern; and Institut de Monde Arabe, Paris. Her work has also been featured in numerous international art exhibitions, including the Sharjah Biennial, UAE; Whitney Biennial, New York; and Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany. Adnan received many honours for her contributions to the field of art and culture, including the Ordre de Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, France’s highest cultural honour, in 2014. The same year, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha dedicated a retrospective exhibition to Adnan curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
— Etel Adnan
Untitled is a brilliant example of Etel Adnan’s late work, painted in 2019. Throughout her life, Adnan returned again and again to the memory of the landscape through both painting and poetry. From Mount Tamalpais to the mountains of Athens and the coastlines of Izmir, she found in the sun, sea, and mountains an enduring muse.
In her distinctive visual language, Adnan distills these landscapes into elemental forms, like after-images of a vivid experience. Her process of repeatedly painting the same landscapes differently reveals her view of the natural world not as fixed, but as fluid and ever-changing: a memory in motion.
In this particular work, Adnan’s beloved sun rests warmly above. Her mountains, rendered in interlocking shades of peach, green, and yellow, flank either side of an azure sea. Sandy tones along the lower edge of the painting suggest that Adnan is standing at the shore, overlooking the mountain in this remembered moment.
Of Greek and Syrian heritage, Adnan was born in Beirut in 1925. She studied at the Sorbonne in Paris before relocating to California, where she taught philosophy at Dominican College. Moving between several worlds, Adnan led a nomadic life shaped by multiple languages and cultures. She often said her paintings were her only true home.
Adnan’s solo exhibition has been held in institutions across the world, including at Serpentine, London; Pera Art Museum, Istanbul; Aspen Art Museum, Colorado; MUDAM, Luxembourg; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern; and Institut de Monde Arabe, Paris. Her work has also been featured in numerous international art exhibitions, including the Sharjah Biennial, UAE; Whitney Biennial, New York; and Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany. Adnan received many honours for her contributions to the field of art and culture, including the Ordre de Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, France’s highest cultural honour, in 2014. The same year, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha dedicated a retrospective exhibition to Adnan curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist.