The Museo Reina Sofía presents Huguette Caland: A Life in a Few Lines, the first major European retrospective dedicated to the Lebanese artist Huguette Caland (1931–2019). Spanning nearly 300 works, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, collages, and multimedia pieces, the exhibition offers a deep exploration of Caland’s unique artistic language, shaped by her experiences across Lebanon, Paris, and California.
Caland’s work defies conventional artistic and social norms, often blurring the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, the personal and the universal. Her celebrated Bribes de corps (Body Bits) series from the 1970s playfully reimagines the human form, while later works like Guerre Incivile (Uncivil War, 1981) confront the violence of Lebanon’s civil war. The exhibition also highlights her collaborations in fashion, particularly her designs for Pierre Cardin, which merged her painterly motifs with textile traditions.
Throughout her career, Caland’s art remained deeply autobiographical. Whether through eroticised landscapes, fragmented self-portraits, or explorations of language and identity, her work reflects a relentless pursuit of self-expression. In her later years, her paintings took on a more introspective tone, evoking memories of her homeland through dreamlike depictions of Lebanese houses and seascapes.
Curated by Hannah Feldman, this retrospective reaffirms Caland’s place in the global art canon, celebrating her bold vision and unwavering commitment to artistic freedom. Below Brigitte Caland the daughter of the artist answers some of our questions.
In Conversation with Brigitte Caland
Can you take us through the process of putting together Huguette Caland: A Life in a Few Lines at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid?
It was truly a team effort. A project of this scale requires collaboration, and the show’s curator, Hannah Feldman played a crucial role. As a professor and researcher, her meticulous approach ensured that every element had meaning, with nothing left to chance. Over four years, we provided the material, but she did the real work. The team at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía was also incredible.
Featured in 12 rooms are over 200 works from the studio, excluding archival materials and 30 pieces that we couldn’t transport for this show from Beirut due to the war, but that will be included in the next show in Hamburg.
The exhibition reflects the passage of time. The erotic themes of her 30s and 40s give way to more introspective pieces. This natural progression is integral to understanding her artistic journey.
When will the next show take place?
In October 2025. It will run for six months at Reina Sofía before moving to Hamburg, where it will remain until April 2026. Given its length, I’m particularly concerned about the fragility of certain pieces, such as textiles and drawings. We have dimmed the lighting to preserve them, creating intimate spaces within the exhibition while also enhancing the overall experience.
Did this exhibition teach you anything new about your mother’s work?
Not so much about her work itself—I’ve been immersed in it for years—but the process of curating and exhibition installation was eye-opening. What I learned from this exhibition was the complexity of selecting, arranging, and hanging pieces. Watching Hannah Feldman and Teresa Velázquez (the head of the temporary exhibitions at the Museo Reina Sofía) navigate these challenges at Reina Sofía was invaluable.
Balancing my mother’s signature playfulness with the museum’s structure was difficult. Teresa’s experience—16 years at Reina Sofía—helped us understand what worked visually and what didn’t. Allowing one playful room preserved the spirit of her work while maintaining the museum’s standard.
One striking example of playfulness was the hanging of The Legs of My Aunts Under the Table. Hannah fought for its spot. The wall opposite featured structured self-portraits, while this piece brought in a mischievous contrast. My mother often hung works over doorways at home, and Hannah wanted to recreate that. It wasn’t standard museum practice, but they made an exception. The corridor, which could have felt transitional, became a fully realised space with its own identity.
Witnessing the meticulous unpacking and installation of museum loans was also incredible. Each piece was handled with the utmost care, monitored by conservators and live condition reports on Zoom with lenders followed by several cameras to capture the whole process—an experience I had never encountered before.
How did you approach archiving and preparing for an exhibition of this scale?
Archiving has been a long process, supported by a dedicated team in Los Angeles and by Nadine Begdache, owner of the Janine Rubeiz gallery in Beirut who championed my mother’s work long before anyone. The meticulous cataloguing and numbering of works have been essential, particularly as we are working on the catalogue raisonné. Archival work is an ongoing process. Even after years of study, we still find surprises.
This exhibition contextualises my mother’s evolution. Many knew her Bribes de Corps series, but I’ve long emphasised other periods, particularly Silent Letters, which I consider a pinnacle of her practice. This exhibition illustrates the transition between her early erotic works, landscape studies, and later abstractions, offering a comprehensive view of her artistic development.
Can you tell us more about the Silent Letters series?
What touches me most about this series are the reasons behind it as well as the process of reaching abstraction, and the exhibition gives a glimpse of it. This very large series, created on canvas and paper, involved various dimensions and different sizes of brushes and pens; the handmade Japanese papers were sourced from Hiromi, the wife of artist Joe Goode, in Los Angeles and some were large and heavy; the exhibition at Reina Sofia dedicates a room to this body of work and features one of the largest pieces. To see my mother execute them with such control was mesmerising. Every movement had to be exact—there was no room for error. Her level of concentration was amazing as she worked with no other tools than her hand and brush/pens to define the size of the lines, their beginning and end.
Did her political background influence her work?
Not at all. She deliberately distanced herself from that identity. She left Lebanon to be independent—not as someone’s daughter, wife, or mother, but as an artist in her own right. Her Paris exhibition in November 2024 Les Années Parisiennes, curated by Sylvie Patry assisted by Léo Rivaud Chevaillier at Kamel Mennour Gallery, was the first to focus solely on her artistic connections without referencing her family history. She would have loved this.
She was highly experimental, working across mediums, including a film script. Her drive to explore different forms was central to her artistic identity.
She co-founded Inaash after witnessing the dire conditions of Palestinian refugee camps. Alongside a friend, she worked to provide electricity and water, later empowering women through embroidery. The Inaash dress at Reina Sofía represents the early stages of this initiative, and seeing how the craftsmanship has evolved since is inspiring.
What’s next for her legacy?
There are ongoing projects, but I prefer to discuss them once they are finalised. Publications are in progress, which is crucial for preserving and expanding her legacy.
About Brigitte Caland
Brigitte Caland is a curator, writer, and researcher specialising in modern and contemporary Arab art.
Dates: February 19 – August 25, 2025
Location: Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid