IMAGE 2
ETEL ADNAN
LEBANON · 1925–2021
Lived & Worked
United States, France
Period
Contemporary
Mediums
Painting, Poetry
BIOGRAPHY
Etel Adnan occupies a singular position in twentieth and twenty-first century art as a poet, novelist, and painter whose life traversed Beirut, Paris, and California. Born in Beirut in 1925 to a Syrian Muslim father and a Greek Orthodox mother, she grew up between multiple languages and cultures. This early experience of language and script would later...
Arabic Artist Record — Download Full PDF
Available
Exhibitions
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2025
On Paper, 1960–2021
Galerie Lelong & Co., New York
2025
Zum Hundertsten
Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg
2024
Between East and West
King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra), Dhahran
2022
Colour as Language
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
2022
Lenbachhaus, Munich
2022
Discovery of Immediacy
Galerie Lelong & Co., New York & Paris
2021–2022
Light's New Measure
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
2021
Impossible Homecoming
Pera Museum, Istanbul
2019
Et les modernes
MUDAM – Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg City
2019
Each Day Is a Whole World
Aspen Art Museum, Aspen
2018
New Work
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco
2018
A Yellow Sun A Green Sun A Yellow Sun A Red Sun A Blue Sun
MASS MoCA, North Adams
2018
Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern
2016–2017
Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris
2016
The Weight of the World
Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London
2015–2016
Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich
2015
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
2014–2015
Writing Mountains
Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Salzburg
2014
In All Her Dimensions
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024
Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere
La Biennale di Venezia, Venice
2021
Women in Abstraction
Centre Pompidou, Paris
2017
Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
2015
SALTWATER: A Theory of Thought Forms
14th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul
2015
Sharjah Biennial 12
Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah
2014
Here and Elsewhere
New Museum, New York
2014
77th Whitney Biennial
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
2012
dOCUMENTA (13)
Kassel
2006
Word into Art: Artists of the Modern Middle East
British Museum, London
Public Collections
France
Centre Pompidou (MNAM), Paris
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris
LAM – Musée d'Art Moderne, Lille
United Kingdom
British Museum, London
Tate, London
United States
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
FLAG Art Foundation, New York
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco
Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
Qatar
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha
Lebanon
Sursock Museum, Beirut
Jordan
Royal Jordanian Museum, Amman
United Arab Emirates
Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah
Ireland
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin
Switzerland
Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich
Germany
Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf
Netherlands
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Italy
Castello di Rivoli, Turin
Portugal
Serralves Museum, Porto
Hong Kong
M+, Hong Kong
Tunisia
Museum of Modern Art, Tunis
Publications
By the Artist
1977
Sitt Marie Rose
1986
Journey to Mount Tamalpais
1989
The Arab Apocalypse
1993
Of Cities and Women: Letters to Fawwaz
2012
Sea and Fog
2019
Time
2020
Shifting the Silence
Selected Publications About the Artist
2018
Etel Adnan
Exhibition catalogue
2020
Etel Adnan
Kaelen Wilson Goldie
Lund Humphries, Contemporary Painters Series
2021
Etel Adnan: Light's New Measure
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum exhibition catalogue
2024
Erquy
Galerie Lelong & Co.
2024
Les estampes / The Prints
Galerie Lelong & Co.
2024
Etel Adnan
Hans Ulrich Obrist, Jean Frémon and Cole Swensen
Galerie Lelong, Paris
Auction Highlights
2026 HIGHLIGHTS
Untitled
Estimate 150,000 - 200,000 GBP
Realised Price 444,500 GBP
Untitled
Estimate 30,000 - 40,000 GBP
Realised Price 252,000 GBP
Untitled (c.1995 to 2000)
Estimate 80,000 - 120,000 GBP
Realised Price 101,600 GBP
Automne (2020)
Estimate 100,000 - 150,000 USD
Realised Price 193,500 USD
Untitled (1980)
Christie's, London
£190,500
Je suis un volcan (I am a Volcano) (2021)
Phillips, London
£3,096
2025 HIGHLIGHTS
Untitled
Estimate 150,000 - 200,000 USD
Realised Price 381,000 USD
2024 HIGHLIGHTS
Untitled (2014)
Bonhams, London
£146,450
2023 HIGHLIGHTS
California
Estimate 60,000 - 80,000 USD
Realised Price 352,800 USD
Untitled
Christie's, New York
US$315,000
Untitled (2003)
Christie's, London
£214,200
Le poids du monde 2
Phillips
£108,360
Adonis
Phillips
£64,500
2022 HIGHLIGHTS
Untitled (c.1960)
Christie's, London
£201,600
Lumière 2 (c.1960)
Christie's, London
£113,400
2021 HIGHLIGHTS
Untitled (1973)
Christie's, London
£352,800 (Auction record at the time)
Awards & Accolades
2024
Google Doodle commemorating the anniversary of her first solo exhibition
2021
Lichtwark Prize, Hamburg
Lifetime Achievement Award
2020
Griffin International Poetry Prize
Time (translated by Sarah Riggs)
Best Translated Book Award (Poetry)
Time
2014
Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres
French Ministry of Culture
2013
California Book Award for Poetry
Sea and Fog
Lambda Literary Award (Lesbian Poetry)
Sea and Fog
2010
Arab American Book Award
Master of the Eclipse
1977
Prix France Pays Arabes
Sitt Marie Rose
References
Featured Artworks
Etel Adnan
Untitled (2003)
Christie's
https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6453557
Untitled (2010)
Centre Pompidou, Paris https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/ressources/oeuvre/cx99gp
Untitled (2013)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York https://whitney.org/exhibitions/2014-biennial/etel-adnan