Artists

Huguette Caland

Press release

Mennour is delighted to present the first exhibition of Huguette Caland (1931-2019), the successful outcome of its collaboration with the artist’s Estate, announced in June 2024. A key figure in the Lebanese Golden Sixties, Huguette Caland belongs to the same generation as Shafic Abboud, Etel Adnan, Simone Fattal and Saloua Raouda Choucair. However, her free and protean work however has little visible presence in France even though she lived, worked and exhibited there between 1970 and 1987.

This original retrospective exhibition focuses on those decisive and fruitful years during which Caland made some of her greatest works. It will highlight the boldness, dynamism, mischief and beauty of Caland’s art adventure by gathering for the first time an exceptional body of nearly fifty major works, of which twenty-fou paintings—among them works from the famous series “Bribes de corps [Body Parts]” from the 1970s—as well as nineteen works on paper and two kaftans—one from her collaborative work with the fashion designer Pierre Cardin.

This unprecedented exhibition in France marks the start of big events in Europe and the United States, among them a major retrospective at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid in February 2025. Mennour is honoured to contribute to the international rediscovery of an oeuvre that resonates so much with our current preoccupations.

Curated by Sylvie Patry
Assistant curator: Léo Rivaud Chevaillier