Simone FATTAL (b. 1942) is a Syrian-born, Paris-based multidisciplinary artist whose work traverses sculpture, painting, ceramics, collage, and publishing. Her practice draws deeply on historical, poetic, and mythological sources, treating time as an elastic medium in which past and present coexist. Known primarily for her archetypal sculptures, Fattal employs motifs that span ancient Egypt, Greco-Roman mythology, and Sufi mysticism—reflecting her itinerant life and a cultural hybridity that speaks to the shared essence of civilisations across time.

Born in Damascus and raised in Lebanon, Fattal studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and archaeology at the École du Louvre in Paris. In 1969, she returned to Beirut, where she began painting and exhibiting her work until the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. In 1980, she left Lebanon and resettled in Sausalito, California. There, she founded Post-Apollo Press, a publishing house committed to experimental and avant-garde literature from around the world.

Her return to visual art in the late 1980s marked a turning point: enrolling in a course at the San Francisco Art Institute, she expanded her practice to include collage, ceramics, and stone work. Her clay sculptures, described by Negar Azimi as “figures [that] look as old as the earth and yet they breathe,” display an animistic vitality that continues to characterise her work. More recently, she has been working in terra-cotta, etching, watercolour, and bronze—giving her timeless forms new monumental presence.

Fattal now lives and works in Paris. She was the 2024 recipient of both the Berlin Grand Art Prize and the Julio González International Prize. Recent exhibitions include Simone Fattal. Suspension of Disbelief at at IVAM in Valencia (2025); Simone Fattal: metaphorS at the Secession in Vienna (2024); a solo presentation at the Musée du Louvre, Paris (2024); and participation in the Holy See Vatican Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale (Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere), curated by Adriano Pedrosa.

Her work is held in significant public collections including: the Centre Pompidou and Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris; mumok, Vienna; the Musée Yves Saint Laurent, Marrakech; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the National Museum of Qatar, Doha; the Sharjah Art Foundation; the Aïshti Foundation and Metropolitan Art Society, Beirut.