The author of 'The Prophet', Gibran Khalil Gibran, better known in the West as Kahlil Gibran, was also a painter whose artworks paralleled the thematic and aesthetic direction of his writing.

Enrolling in 1918 at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Gibran also studied with the sculptor Auguste Rodin. That same year, the Salon du Printemps awarded Gibran the silver medal.

'Twenty Drawings' is a collection of Gibran's watercolours representing the human form as spiritual and divine.

Lightness permeates his paintings, giving them a lyrical, mystical appearance. Backgrounds appear as ephemeral whispers. Gibran’s figures float, weightless, with no musculature, and achieve their form through the delicate application of colour. Where pencil and paint overlap, they simultaneously diffuse and define his figures, granting them a translucent, dream-like quality.

As the Metropolitan Museum of Art notes, Gibran explores "symbols and elements of nature, time, and space while pushing the boundaries between physicality and spirituality”. In the spirit of William Blake, Gibran's art offers a vision of transcendence, unencumbered by the limits of the material world.