Art Talk: Etel Adnan

In October 2021 I went with Jodi to The Guggenheim in New York City. There were two artists on exhibit Vasil Kandinsky and Etel Anand.

Who is Etel Anand?

Etel is a Lebanese-American poet and artist. She was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1925 to a Syrian father and a Greek mother. She grew up learning and speaking multiple languages.

Poet

Wrote her first poem when she was 20 years old and continued writing throughout her life.

My Favorite time is in time's other side
by Etel Adnan

My favorite time is in time's other side, its other identity, the kind that collapse and sometimes reappears, and sometimes doesn't. the one that looks like marshmallows, pomegranates, and stranger things, before returning to its kind of abstraction. I used to be fond of time as it was matter that helped us feel intelligent. Those days have gone to where days go, in their own cemeteries. Today I see eternity everywhere. I had yesterday an empty class of champagne on the table. and it looked both infinite and eternal, though it left me indifferent. At least, I was in good company, and a day closer to all sorts of annihilations.

Student and Educator

She went to France to study philosophy and then the United States studying at UC Berkeley and Harvard. She then taught the Philosophy of Art at Dominican University of California from 1958 to 1972.

Painter

She started painting in the late 1950s. This is a great video from the Tate Museum about Etel. It shows the interaction of Etel and her fellow professor Ann about her being an artist. And here is the story of Etel telling how she became and artist in her own words.

Etel and her partner, Simone Fattal is lived in Sausalito, California for decades. She painted Mount Tampalpais often and wrote a book in 1986 Journey to Mount Tamalpais, which is a meditation on the relationship between nature and art.

Some of her many mountain paintings

I found it very interesting that she created her paintings with a pallet knife instead of paint brush.

Etel Adnan
Untitled, 1983
Guggenheim Museum, New York City

Journalist and Novelist

Etel went back to Lebanon during the Civil war in the 1970s. She was a journalist and writer.
She has written many books including Sitt Marie Rose about the Civil War in Lebanon.

Fiber artist

Etel also did fiber art, including this tapestry from the Guggenheim.

Etel Adnan
Morning Mist, 2019
Guggenheim Museum, New York City

When I first saw Etel's work, frankly I was unimpressed. It was difficult for me to transition for seeing the brilliance of Kandinsky and moving to Etel's work in the same space. Her work looked very childish. Since doing the research for this post I understand better this quote I took a picture of at the Guggenheim.

Etel was a woman who lived a long (96 years) and very interesting life and expressed herself through words and visual arts in a way that is really quite impressive.

Here is another video from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Etel Adnan on art and urgency. Here you get to see an interview with Etel in 2018.