Huguette Caland: A Life in a Few Lines

The most comprehensive survey of the overlooked Lebanese artist’s sinuous, erotic oeuvre returns to print Published with Hammer Museum/Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. In a career spanning almost five decades, the Lebanese artist Huguette Caland (1931–2019) defied all societal and aesthetic expectations of her time. Her multifaceted oeuvre is informed by her life spent across different cultures: from Beirut to Paris to Los Angeles and back. In paintings, drawings, sculptures and fabric works, she challenges traditional representations of sexuality, bodies and desire. Straddling figuration and abstraction—sometimes with explicitly erotic motifs—the artist developed her characteristic alphabet of curves, slits, bulges and dimples, with which she was well ahead of her time. Originally published in 2025, A Life in a Few Lines surveys Caland’s corpus, presenting more than 200 works, retracing biographical lines and painting a picture of her historical context.