Etel Adnan
Untitled, 2000
oil on canvas
22.9 x 30.5 cm
Now in her mid-nineties, Etel Adnan is a prolific poet, philosopher and artist, who turned her attention to painting around the time of the Algerian war of independence (1954–1962). This shift in focus was in solidarity with the war, as for Adnan writing in French — the language of the coloniser and her mother tongue — no longer felt like the best form of expression. Raised in Lebanon, she was educated in Paris and then the United States. For many years now Sausalito in northern California has been Adnan’s home.
Untitled is part of Adnan’s series of thousands of works depicting Mount Tamalpais. From her home she has a view over this ancient peak, which has resulted in its presence in her work from the 1960s onwards.
‘Here her language is colour, creating abstract pastel shapes with a pallet knife that together render the natural body and its surroundings on her small canvasses. Looking at the mountain again and again involves a certain attention to nature, noticing all the slight changes with each new day. Adnan argues that lack of attention can lead to ecological catastrophe’ (Harry Burke, ‘Collection Study – Etel Adnan, Untitled’, 2015).
Etel Adnan’s Untitled is included in Earthbound: Contemporary Landscape from the Roberts Institute of Art, an exhibition of works from the David and Indrė Roberts Collection and Sheffield's visual arts collection, on view at Sheffield Museums' Millennium Gallery until 31 October.