Huguette Caland: A Life in a Few Lines
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Featuring approximately 150 drawings, paintings, sculptures and textiles alongside archival materials and ephemera, Huguette Caland: A Life in a Few Lines presents an artist deeply connected to community, communication, and the idea of home. It also reveals her defiance of social and sexual norms in sensual and vibrant works that explore notions of humor, language, gender, aging, and physicality.
Lebanese by birth, French by marriage, and American by choice, Huguette Caland (1931–2019) spent her last decades in Venice, California, where she engaged with leading artists even as she struggled to establish her own artistic standing. Caland’s work reached wider audiences following her inclusion in the Hammer Museum’s biennial exhibition Made in L.A. 2016: a, the, though, only, which helped (re)introduce her to a global art world where her oeuvre quickly found footing.
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![Mannequin wearing a caftan decorated with painted faces]()
Huguette Caland, Foule (Dress #2), 1970Thread on fabric. 73 × 19 × 12 in. (185.4 × 48.3 × 30.5 cm). Wood, acrylic paint. Shown with Mannequin #2, 1985. Wood, acrylic paint. 73 × 19 × 12 in. (185.4 × 48.3 × 30.5 cm). Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Purchased through the Board of Advisors Acquisition Fund. © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate. Photo © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate
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![Playful, colorful painting featuring parts of several faces]()
Huguette Caland, Enlève ton doigt, 1971Oil on canvas. 15 × 30 in. (38.1 × 76.2 cm). Private collection. © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate. Photo © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate
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![Abstract composition of organic forms]()
Huguette Caland, Self-Portrait (Bribes de corps), 1973]Oil on linen. 35 1/4 × 27 1/4 in. (89.5 × 69.2 cm). Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Gift of Erika J. Glazer. © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate. Photo © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate
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![Mannequin wearing a caftan painted to resemble a nude woman's body]()
Huguette Caland, Miroir (Dress #4), 1974Thread on fabric. 73 × 19 × 12 in. (185.4 × 48.3 × 30.5 cm). Shown with Mannequin #4, 1985. Wood, acrylic paint. 73 × 19 × 12 in. (185.4 × 48.3 × 30.5 cm). Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Purchased through the Board of Advisors Acquisition Fund. © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate. Photo © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate
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![Painting with various female forms]()
Huguette Caland, Guerre incivile, 1981Oil on linen. 15 × 30 in. (38.1 × 76.2 cm). Private collection. © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate. Photo © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate
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![Minimal painting with a slender figure down the middle resembling a bone]()
Huguette Caland, Ligament, 1984Oil on linen. 80 1/4 × 80 1/8 in. (203.8 × 203.5 cm). Private collection. © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate. Photo © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate
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![Faceless figure in a paint-streaked white smock]()
Huguette Caland, Self-Portrait in Smock, 1992Oil on canvas. 30 × 30 in. (76.2 × 76.2 cm). Private collection. © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate. Photo © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate
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![Portrait with exaggerated features, eyes ringed in gold]()
Huguette Caland, L’argent ne fait pas le bonheur mais il y contribue largement: Ancestor, 1994–95Mixed media. 9 13/16 × 9 13/16 in. (25 × 25 cm). Private collection. © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate. Photo © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate
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![Abstract composition in brown, black, and white]()
Huguette Caland, Rossinante, 2011Mixed media on paper. 21 7/8 × 15 5/16 in. (55.6 × 38.9 × 2.5 cm). © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate. Photo © and courtesy of Huguette Caland Estate
Huguette Caland: A Life in a Few Lines is organized by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid in collaboration with the Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. The exhibition is curated by Hannah Feldman, and the Hammer presentation is organized with additional curatorial consultation by Aram Moshayedi, independent curator, with Jennifer Buonocore-Nedrelow, curatorial assistant.
All exhibitions at the Hammer are made possible by the Hammer Exhibition Fund. Lead support is provided by Alice and Nahum Lainer. Generous support is provided by Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein, Christine Meleo Bernstein and Armyan Bernstein, and Bill Hair.