Dastan Gallery showed artworks of celebrated Iranian illustrator and cartoonist Ardeshir Mohasses (1938-2008) at Frieze Art Fair in New York, May 3-6. The exhibition was of two selections of drawings by the contemporary artist, one titled “Shenasnameh” (identity card) and the other “Vaqaye-ye Ettefaqiya” (current events). The exhibited works were displayed ten years ago in Asia Society and Museum in New York, Honaronline reported on its Persian website. Born in Rasht, Gilan Province, in north Iran, Mohasses graduated from the Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tehran in 1962. He worked as satirist, illustrator and cartoonist for local magazines in 1963, and held several solo and group exhibitions. He left Iran in 1976 and took up residence in New York, where he published his illustrations in The New York Times, The Nation and other journals. Despite having Parkinson’s disease, he worked until his death in 2008. His caricatures were often compared with those of the Romanian American cartoonist Saul Steinberg, but he also drew inspiration from masters like Honoré Daumier and Pablo Picasso, as well as Iranian traditional art of the 16th and 17th centuries. Dastan Gallery, established in 2012 in Tehran, has in the past participated in international fairs including Art Basel in Hong Kong and Art Dubai. This is the first time that an Iran-based gallery participated in an art fair in New York. Frieze is an international art fair for contemporary art that introduces works of 170 art galleries. Founded in 1991, it is a media and events company that comprises three publications, Frieze magazine, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week; and four international art fairs, Frieze London, Frieze LA, Frieze New York and Frieze Masters.
