Hirmer, 2022

For the first time, the Lebanese-American writer and artist Etel Adnan is being honoured with a comprehensive retrospective in Germany. This volume presents her fascinating work from all creative phases and media. Politically, poetically and metaphysically – Adnan’s texts and pictures reflect the lively exchange between the Arab and the Western world.

Etel Adnan (1925–2021) spent her life between Lebanon, France and California. She has long been famous as a writer; now this volume presents her impressive artistic personality in the combined exploration of her texts, paintings, tapestries and leporellos. Her biography between the cultures and her feminism play a part, as does her relationship to calligraphy and to American and Arab literature. The publication is a tribute to a cosmopolitan artist, to whom painting represented the love of the world.