In 1950, Adnan received her Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating from the University of Paris (also known as Sorbonne). Two years later, in 1952, Etel obtained a degree in Philosophy from the same university.
Gallery of Etel Adnan
2000 Carleton Street Berkeley, CA, 94720-2284, United States
During the period from 1955 to 1957, Adnan studied at the University of California, Berkeley.
Gallery of Etel Adnan
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, United States
From 1957 to 1958, she attended Harvard University.
Career
Gallery of Etel Adnan
50 Acacia Ave, San Rafael, CA 94901, United States
From 1958 to 1972, Etel held the post of a professor of Philosophy at Dominican University of California.
Gallery of Etel Adnan
Gallery of Etel Adnan
Achievements
Membership
Awards
Lambda Literary Award
In 2013, Etel was awarded a Lambda Literary Award.
Order of Arts and Letters
In 2014, Etel was made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.
In 1950, Adnan received her Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating from the University of Paris (also known as Sorbonne). Two years later, in 1952, Etel obtained a degree in Philosophy from the same university.
(The Arab Apocalypse is an immersion into a rapture of cha...)
The Arab Apocalypse is an immersion into a rapture of chaos clawing towards destiny, and nullified hope refusing its zero. Is is also the journey of soul through the cartography of a global immediacy, rarely registered by maps, replete with signposts like hieroglyphs in a storm of shrapnel and broken glass.
Etel Adnan is a Lebanese-born American artist, essayist and poet, who works in a variety of media, such as oil paintings, films and tapestries. She represents Abstract Expressionism movement and her works poetically interpret the Northern Californian landscape around San Francisco Bay, where she spent much of her life.
Background
Ethnicity:
Her father was a Syrian and her mother was of Greek ancestry.
Etel Adnan was born on February 24, 1925 in Beirut, Lebanon. She is a daughter of Assaf Kadri, a military commander of the Ottoman Empire, and Rose Lily (Lacorté) Adnan.
Education
In her early years, Etel attended French convent schools in Beirut. Also, she attended L’Ecole Superieure des Lettres in Beirut. Some time later, Adnan travelled to Paris in order to continue her studies. In 1950, she received her Bachelor of Arts degree, graduating from the University of Paris (also known as Sorbonne). Two years later, in 1952, Etel obtained a degree in Philosophy from the same university.
During the period from 1955 to 1957, Adnan studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and from 1957 to 1958, she also attended Harvard University.
In 1941, Etel started to work at the Bureau de la Presse in Beirut, Lebanon, where she remained till 1945. Since 1947 to 1949, Adnan held the post of a teacher of French Literature at Al-Ahliya School for Girls in Beirut. Some time later, she left for the United States and in 1958, Etel was appointed a professor of Philosophy at Dominican College (present-day Dominican University of California) in San Rafael, California, a position she held till 1972.
In the early 1970's, Adnan came back to her native Lebanon, where, during the period from 1972 to 1975, she served as a journalist and cultural editor for Al-Safa and L'Orient-Le Jour newspapers.
In 1977, Etel's novel, entitled "Sitt Marie-Rose" was published in Paris. The novel was enormously influential and has since been translated into more than ten languages. In the late 1970's, Adnan wrote texts for two documentaries about the civil war in Lebanon, both of which were shown throughout Europe and in Japan. Also, in the late 1970's, Adnan retired from a permanent teaching position and devoted almost all her time to art and writing, settling down in Sausalito, California.
During her lifetime, the painter exhibited her works at different museums and galleries, including Whitney Museum of Modern Art in New York City (2014), Galerie Lelong in Paris (2015), Galerie Lelong in New York City (2015), Sharjah art Museum in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2015) and others. Also, in 2012, she exhibited her series of brightly colored abstract paintings at documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany.
Currently, she divides her time between Sausalito and Paris.
(This is a collection of stories about displacement, love,...)
2009
painting
Oil Fields
Untitled
Untitled
Mount Tamalpais
Untitled
Five Senses for One Death
Untitled #17
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
Views
Quotations:
"Do what your inner soul tells you to do, regardless of any money or success it will bring you."
"Colors exist for me as entities in themselves, as metaphysical beings."
"I always had a few people who liked what I did, and that was enough."
"I write what I see; I paint what I am."
"Abstract art was the equivalent of poetic expression; I didn’t need to use words, but colors and lines. I didn’t need to belong to a language-oriented culture, but to an open form of expression."
"We were taught to think that Paris was the center of the universe."
"Places are part of nature, of the bigger picture. We are interrelated. When we contemplate them in their own right, they can sometimes change our lives; they can become spiritual."
"There are not millions of deaths. It happens millions of times that someone dies."
"Not seeing rivers is also another way of dying."
Personality
In her later years, Adnan began to openly identify as lesbian.
Connections
Etel lives with her partner, Simone Fattal, an artist and writer.
Father:
Assaf Kadri
Mother:
Rose Lily (Lacorté) Adnan
life partner:
Simone Fattal
References
Etel Adnan (Contemporary Painters Series)
This is the first book to present a full account of Adnan’s fascinating life and work, using the drama of her biography, the complexity of her identity and the cosmopolitan nature of her experience to illuminate the many layers and dimensions of her paintings and their progress over several crucial decades.
2018
Homage to Etel Adnan
Homage to Etel Adnan is a collection of poetic and critical reflections, meditations and personal anecdotes, written in tribute to Etel Adnan.