Los Angeles is celebrating one of its most joyful adopted artists this fall. Huguette Caland: A Life in a Few Lines, now on view at the Hammer Museum in Westwood through February 28, 2027, is a colorful retrospective full of humor, warmth and invention — and admission to the museum is always free.
Featuring approximately 150 drawings, paintings, sculptures and textiles, alongside archival materials and ephemera, the exhibition traces a life lived across continents. Lebanese by birth, French by marriage and American by choice, Huguette Caland (1931–2019) moved between Beirut, Paris and Los Angeles, and spent her last decades in Venice, California, where she became part of the city’s vibrant art community.
Caland’s vibrant works explore humor, language, gender, aging and physicality with a playful line that can express, delineate and sometimes hide as much as it reveals. The show also celebrates ideas close to her heart: community, communication and the search for home. Many Los Angeles visitors first discovered her in the Hammer’s Made in L.A. 2016 biennial, which helped introduce her work to a new global audience.
Organized by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, in collaboration with the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg and the Hammer Museum, and curated by Hannah Feldman, this Los Angeles presentation is the third and final stop of the retrospective. Visit Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., at 10899 Wilshire Boulevard, and enjoy a life told in a few unforgettable lines.
Photo: Huguette Caland Estate, courtesy Hammer Museum
