A book on the complete biography of the late Iranian artist Houshang Pezeshknia (1917-1972) was unveiled at Shirin Gallery in Tehran on Friday, May 6.
Compiled by the artist’s granddaughter Sahar Khalkhalian, ‘Shadow of My Grandfather: Houshang Pezeshknia’ includes a variety of works such as his very early paintings, illustrations and graphic design works and rarely seen archival material, an email from the gallery said.
There are also introductions to the artist by the veteran filmmaker Ebrahim Golestan, veteran author and translator Najaf Darya Bandari and art curator Ali Bakhtiari in the book.
The book launch was followed by a talk at the gallery with veteran poet and writer Javad Mojabi and young art researcher Shahrouz Mohajer who discussed the role of Pezeshknia in modern painting in Iran.
Born in Tehran, Pezeshknia studied at Istanbul Academy of Fine Arts. He exhibited his paintings in Tehran, Abadan, Istanbul, Paris and London.
In the last years of his life, (the late 1960s and early 1970s) he lived in solitude; no orders, no exhibitions and no sales. Although he was one of the few Iranian painters who used modern art (or modernism, a movement from the late 19th to mid 20th century) in Iranian painting, he is almost unknown to the younger generation of artists.
