Maliheh Afnan 1935-2016

Maliheh Afnan (1935–2016) works with paper, creating intimate compositions inspired by archaeology, script and ancient manuscripts. Her works often resemble scrolls, tablets or excavated relics, formed through layered surfaces, muted tones and overlapping marks that evoke traces of forgotten histories. Drawing from Persian miniature painting, calligraphic traditions and Near Eastern material culture, while also engaging with Western modernism, her work absorbs diverse influences to form a personal visual language that moves between abstraction, landscape and figuration. Afnan was born in 1935 in Haifa to Persian parents and lived in Beirut, Washington DC, Kuwait, Paris and London, experiences that informed her ongoing exploration of memory, displacement and belonging. She received a BA from the American University of Beirut in 1955 and later completed an MA in Fine Arts at the Corcoran School of Art, Washington DC, in 1962.

Her early works reflected a close engagement with writing, symbols and the materiality of paper, often suggesting documents, inscriptions or fragments of lost narratives. Working on an intimate scale, she developed a distinctive surface built through layering, scratching and staining, creating images that appear weathered by time. Throughout her career, Afnan drew on both personal history and ancient civilizations, allowing references to archaeology, manuscripts and calligraphy to coexist with influences from artists such as Klee, Rothko and Pollock. Rather than illustrating specific cultures, her work moves between places and histories, creating images that feel suspended between past and present.

Afnan exhibited widely throughout Europe, the Middle East and the United States. Solo exhibitions include Personnages, MAN Museo d’Arte Provincia di Nuoro, Sardinia (2019); Tracing Memories, Art Dubai Modern (2016); Speak Memory, Rose Issa Projects, London (2013); Traces, Faces, Places, Rose Issa Projects, London (2010); Selected Works, England & Co, London (2006); and Maliheh Afnan: Retrospective, England & Co, London (2000). Her work has also been included in major group exhibitions at the Whitechapel Gallery, London; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris; The Courtauld Gallery, London; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Sharjah Art Museum; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; the British Museum, London; and the Barbican Centre, London.

Her work has been the subject of several publications, including Maliheh Afnan: Traces, Faces, Places (Al Saqi Books & Beyond Art Productions, 2010) and Familiar Faces (Rose Issa Projects, 2013).

Afnan’s work is held in major public and private collections including Tate, London; the British Museum, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris; The Courtauld Institute of Art, London; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; The Written Art Collection, Germany; and the Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah.

Maliheh Afnan passed away in London in 2016.