Her work belongs to no single country or language. It belongs to whoever stands in front of it and lets it do its work. That's the greatest compliment I know how to give.
3 months ago
Annette Claire Dubois
May 22, 1970 – March 9, 2026 · 55 years
"She lived as if beauty were an obligation."
Biography
Annette Claire Dubois was a celebrated textile artist, poet, and professor from Lyon, France, who spent the last 20 years living and working in New York City. Her tapestries hung in galleries from Paris to São Paulo. Annette taught visual arts at the Parsons School of Design and was beloved by students for her exacting eye and her enormous warmth. She published two collections of poetry, both bilingual — French and English. She died at 55, in the middle of a project, the way she would have wanted. She is survived by her partner James, her mother Colette in Lyon, and a studio full of unfinished work that is already being called important.
Messages & Tributes (18)
+ Write a MessageShe woke up every morning already thinking about what she would make. She went to sleep the same way. I never saw her not inside something creative. I don't know any other way to live now.
3 months ago
She gave a lecture at our university in 2021 that I have thought about at least once a week ever since. On the ethics of beauty. I took six pages of notes.
3 months ago
She was finishing the most ambitious piece of her career. We are working to ensure it will be completed, with her name on it, as it should be.
3 months ago
Her poetry collection "La Couture du Monde" made me feel — for the first time in my life — that the French and English parts of my identity could inhabit the same body.
3 months ago
I translated one of her poems for my graduate thesis. Working inside her language was like being inside a cathedral. Everything echoed.
3 months ago
Her tapestry in the Basel gallery was the first piece of contemporary textile art that made me cry. I stood in front of it for 20 minutes.
3 months ago
My daughter. She crossed the ocean to become everything she imagined and more. I am proud beyond what words can carry.
3 months ago
Annette, you were in the middle of something beautiful. You always were. I will try to be worthy of the life we built.
3 months ago
Annette was the rarest kind of artist — one who understood theory deeply and then set it aside entirely to follow the work wherever it led.
3 months ago