Maliheh Afnan

Estate of the Artist, Paris

Rose Issa, Maliheh Afnan: Traces, Faces and Places, Beirut, 2010, p. 25, illustrated in colour

This work is in very good condition. A pinhole size paint chip to the upper centre of the painting. Some very minor signs of handling alongside the four edges of the canvas. Colours: The colours in the catalogue illustration are accurate with the overall tonality being slightly softer.
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Maliheh Afnan was born into a family of Persian descent in 1935 in Haifa, Palestine. The family relocated to Beirut in 1949, where Afnan finished high school and graduated from the American University of Beirut in 1955.

Maliheh Afnan began her career in the arts as a student of the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C. between the years of 1956 to 1963. She is regarded as an artist that surpassed transnational boundaries by marrying her Middle Eastern heritage with her new life in the West. Sotheby’s is honoured to be offering this rare example by Afnan from 1961 entitled Lady with a Hat, one of the earliest paintings of the artist to appear at auction. This is an exceptional example by Afnan where she experiments with figurative portraiture, in contrast to her lifelong dedication to abstraction and scripture.

Afnan was the first student from the Middle East to attend the prestigious Corcoran School of Art. Upon her graduation in 1963, Lady with a Hat was granted an award of excellence. Afnan continued her career between Paris and later in London until her untimely death in 2016.