Etel Adnan (1925–2021) was a Lebanese-American artist, poet, and essayist born in Beirut and based across multiple geographies before her death in Paris. Writing in French and English, she began painting in California (US) in the early 1960s. Her work gained wide international recognition following documenta 13, Kassel, 2012, and she was invited to the Whitney Biennial, New York, 2014. In the same year, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, presented a retrospective curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist. Since then, numerous museums have devoted exhibitions to her work. Her works are held in major collections including MNAM – Centre Pompidou, Paris; MoMA, New York; M+, Hong Kong; Sursock Museum, Beirut; Institut du monde arabe, Paris; British Museum, London; Tate, London; World Bank Collection, Washington, DC; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.
