Etel Adnan

Collection of the Artist, California
Collection of Jean Rigg, New York (acquired directly from the above in the 1980s)
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2015

Condition: This work is in good condition, some hairline craquelure to the blue skyline composition, a 2mm paint chip to the upper right corner, no signs of restoration under the UV light. Colour: The colour in the catalogue illustration is accurate, with the tonality being softer in the original work.
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Etel Adnan in conversation with Emily Nathan on Politics and Showing with Gerhard Richter, 2017

Your work is marked by its bold, vibrant colors and its almost graphic aesthetic: simple arrangements of simple shapes. How did your style develop?
For me, painting is color. Shape has to be there, of course, because where the color stops, it makes a shape. That’s unavoidable. But the purpose of art-making, for me, is a certain hunger for color. Once the color comes out of the tube, it’s at its most beautiful. So this love for color keeps me painting.

I often work with a palette knife, and that determines a bit what I can do. The tool you use, of course, both limits and helps you—if you use a brush or a palette knife, you will have different results. It’s like in music: If you play the violin or the flute, you won’t get the same sound, even if you’re the same musician. It’s the same with words; they limit you, but how can you write poetry without them?

Many of your paintings seem powerfully tied to a sense of place; you spent many years living in northern California, and Mount Tamalpais makes recurring cameos in your canvases.
To be honest, I was raised thinking that Paris was the center of the universe. The French nuns at my school taught us from a history book called La France dans le monde, or France in the World. So we thought, unless you were in Paris, you were nowhere. But I do not feel this anymore. My real home is either Sausalito or Beirut, where I was born, and I spent much of my life living in California. I remember that my windows there had a big view of Mount Tam. So in a way, Mount Tam forced itself on me—I couldn’t avoid it, and I got very attached to that. I wouldn’t say that all I ever painted was that mountain, far from it, but I would say that I am a California painter; California is my center of the world.