Etel Adnan

Etel Adnan’s love of the Californian landscape is highlighted in this brightly painted watercolour of a tree outside of her home along the Northern coast. Perhaps one the most beautiful descriptions of the significance of the tree in Adnan’s work lies in a recollection by Simone Fattal about the first work that she painted in her studio:

“Etel Adnan worked in my studio for a few years soon after we met in Beirut, Lebanon. As I was a painter myself, I had a large studio that could offer her space and freedom. The first time she used it was to draw a tree, in watercolor. This flower tree was a revelation. I looked at it for a long time and all I could say about it was that it was a flowering tree. It had a lot in it of the Arab miniature’s world. It stood on the page diagonally, its flowers freshly shivering in the outside air, its colors unobtrusive and discreet, almost shy. A young tree” (S. Fattal, "On Perception: Etel Adnan's Visual Art" in Etel Adnan, Critical Essays on the Arab-American Writer and Artist, McFarland & co, North Carolina, pp.89-90).