Having already established herself as an important poet, academic and essayist, Adnan began painting at the age of 34. “Painting just happened,” she explains. “I didn’t know I would become a painter; I didn’t go to art school. When I was teaching the philosophy of art I had access to artists and materials, so I began to paint, and people I trusted liked what I did.” If painting came relatively late to Adnan, the kind of recognition she now has as a painter came even later, when she was already in her eighties. ...Adnan... feels ambivalent about suddenly becoming one of its rising stars. The art market, for one thing, dismays her: “Some collectors don’t even look at the art they own. It is not about art any more, it is about ego – ‘I own ten Picassos’. So what! I would rather have one reproduction and look at it than than ten sitting in the bank.” (https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/ramagazine-etel-adnan-interview)