Etel Adnan

 

Le Poids du Monde 1-20, 2016, by Etel Adnan. Photograph: Tristan Fewings/Getty Images

Etel Adnan’s three “Untitled” paintings from 2010, with bands of radiant color that create a sky and sea with startling lucidity, and a low sun searing even as it dips.Credit...David Heald/Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

 

Etel Adnan, Lebanese artist (and writer and poet) died in November 2021 (Guardian obit)

When she returned to the US for good in 1979, settling with her partner the Lebanese artist and ceramicist, Simone Fattal, in the town of Sausalito, the nearby Mount Tamalpais became her muse. A large 1985 painting titled after the landmark shows a peachy foreground stretching up to a grey peak against a gorgeous blue sky. “That mountain became my best friend,” she said. “It was more than just a beautiful mountain: it entered me, existentially, and filled my life. It became a poem around which I orientated myself.”

Etel Adnan's 'Untitled (Mt. Tamalpais 1)', ca. 1983-86. Etel Adnan and Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg / Beirut

 

Untitled 2012, an oil on canvas work by Etel Adnan, the Lebanese-American writer and painter, at Callicoon.Credit...Ccourtesy of the artist and Callicoon Fine Arts, NY