Etel Adnan: A Tremendous Astronomer

Following an important summer retrospective of the work of Etel Adnan at the Serpentine Gallery in London, showcasing paintings, watercolours, leporellos, films and tapestries, Galerie Lelong presents a new series of works on paper by the artist. Following her recent set of paintings entitled “Le Poids du Monde”, this new sequence, “A Tremendous Astronomer“, consists of 12 drawings in black on pale grey vellum, often accentuated by patches of colour. Sensitive, discreet and intimist, these drawings are presented as imaginary astronomical tables where each ink-drawn symbol seems to dance on the paper. This exhibition of a series of recent paper works echoes a major exhibition organised at the same time at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris.

Etel Adnan was born in Beirut in 1925 to a Greek mother from Izmir and a Syrian father. After studying at the Sorbonne, Berkeley and Harvard, she chose to teach philosophy in California until 1972. She then travelled between her three bases, Lebanon, the United States and France, before settling in Paris, where she lives, writes and paints.