ETEL ADNAN
On the occasion of the publication of four important essays by Etel Adnan (Beirut, 1925 – Paris, 2021), Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio presents an exhibition in Rome dedicated to one of the most original and cosmopolitan figures in contemporary culture. A poet, writer, essayist, and visual artist, Adnan traversed diverse languages, cultures, and disciplines throughout her life, creating a body of work in which writing and imagery are deeply intertwined.
The exhibition is therefore closely linked to the publishing project carried out by Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio in collaboration with Skirà, which brings four fundamental works from her literary output to Italian for the first time: The Cost for Love We Are Not Willing to Pay ; Memoirs of a Youth: Becoming a Writer in Lebanon; Omen; Chronicles from the Twilight of the Ottoman Empire, selected by Jonas Storsve, the exhibition’s curator, in close collaboration with Simone Fattal. The release of Skirà monograph is scheduled in October 2026
The exhibition celebrates Etel Adnan first and foremost as a writer, through the presentation of a significant number of her publications. Adnan spoke five languages—Arabic, Turkish, Greek, English, and French—and wrote in both English and French. The exhibition features a significant number of her publications, attesting to the central role of writing in her artistic research.
Alongside her writing, the exhibition showcases Adnan’s work as a painter, featuring a selection of approximately sixty watercolors and drawings on paper, as well as Leporellos and a monumental tapestry.
The works come from the artist’s estate and, for the most part, have never been exhibited. Created beginning in the 1960s, they bear witness to Adnan’s strong creative personality and reveal her as a one-of-a-kind master of color.
We would also like to extend our sincere gratitude to Galerie Lelong.
Born in Beirut to a Greek mother from Smyrna and a father from Damascus—Assaf Kadri Bey, an officer on the General Staff of the Ottoman Empire and military governor of Smyrna—Adnan studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, at the University of Berkeley, and later at Harvard in the United States. From 1958 to 1972, he taught philosophy at the Dominican University of San Rafael in California.
Health problems brought her back to Lebanon in 1972, where she met the artist Simone Fattal, her partner for nearly fifty years. The two later returned to California, where Fattal founded the publishing house Post-Apollo Press in 1982, with the aim of publishing, among other works, Adnan’s writings. In the early 2000s, they settled in Paris.
Although Adnan had been painting on canvas and paper since the 1960s, it wasn’t until Documenta(13) in 2012 that she was recognized as the great visual artist she was. Her works are now included in numerous public collections, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Mathaf in Doha, the MoMA in New York, and the Tate Gallery in London.