Alice Attie (b. 1950)

Alice Attie was born and raised in New York in 1950. She is a self-taught artist, having received her undergraduate degree in French literature, with a concentration in 19th century French Poetry from Barnard College. Later receiving her MFA in Poetry, studying under June Jordan. She also holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. 

Her artwork and writing is inspired by her ancestral history in Aleppo, Syria, concerning both, directly and indirectly, the unspeakable tragedy that has destroyed the nation. Attie has explored the relationship between her writing and art, often composing visual responses to the material she was studying or teaching. Her works explore the relationship between writing and drawing and how these two overlap.

More recently, Attie has turned her focus to the Covid-19 pandemic, creating a series in gouache on paper entitled C19. 

Her works on paper and photographs are in the collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Jewish Museum, The Studio Museum of Harlem, New York; The Getty Museum, Los Angeles; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, among others.