17. Etel Adnan

Artist Etel Adnan, 96, has proved that to shape the next generation, art must often shift its shape. Through visual art, poetry, journalism, prose and plays, she has become a potent voice of contemporary Arab-american culture, author of acclaimed war literature, a devotee of colour, and creator of vivid, elemental abstract art (pictured is Untitled, 2018). Born in Beirut, she moved from Paris to America in 1955. Ceasing writing in French in the wake of the Algerian War, she turned to colour field abstract painting. ‘Abstract art was the equivalent of poetic expression. I didn’t need to use words, but colours and lines. I didn’t need to belong to a language-oriented culture but to an open form of expression,’ she has said. Opening on 8 October, Adnan’s expansive career will be celebrated in a solo exhibition, ‘Etel Adnan: Light’s New Measure’, at the Guggenheim New York. eteladnan.com