A series of paintings by students of Hannibal Alkhas, the celebrated Assyrian-Iranian artist, are on display at Laleh Art Gallery.
The exhibition, to commemorate the late artist, has been arranged by his son Buna Alkhas in collaboration with the Cultural and Artistic Society of Iranian Painters and Nazar publishing house, Honaronline reported.
The event is the first step in the process of establishing the Alkhas foundation, said Taraneh Sadeghian, painter and curator of the gallery. In addition to paintings, documents, photos and notes by Alkhas will be collected.
“We decided to invite a group of his students to showcase their artworks. Currently, his paintings are unavailable.”
Sixty painters are displaying their works, including well-known artists Reza Bangiz, Bahram Daniri, Rozita Sharaf Jahan, Niloofar Ghaderi Nejad and Ahmad Vakili.
Sadeghian said no special theme is chosen for the artworks, although some painters have worked on Alkhas’ portraits. AVA, a medical equipment manufacturing firm has provided artists a platform to showcase the artworks online.
The exhibition opened on June 12 and will run till June 21.
Sculptor and Author
Hannibal Alkhas was a sculptor, painter and author. Born in Iran in 1930 into an ethnic Assyrian Christian family, he spent his childhood and teenage years in Kermanshah, Ahwaz and Tehran. In 1951, Alkhas moved to the United States in pursuit of his education and studied philosophy for three years at the Loyola University of Chicago, Illinois.
From 1953 to 1958 he attended the Art Institute of Chicago where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine arts.
In 1959, after the death of his father, the eminent Assyrian writer Rabi-Adai Alkhas, he returned to Iran and began to teach painting, drawing and art history at the Tehran School of Fine Arts. During this time he established the Gilgamesh Gallery, the first modern art gallery in Iran where aspiring young artists were introduced. In 1963 he returned to the US and taught at Monticello College in Illinois where he became the chairman of the art department.
Alkhas has also created book illustrations, written poems and translated many poems to and from Assyrian. His works have been displayed in numerous exhibitions in Iran, Europe, Canada, Australia and the US. He died on September 14, 2010 of cancer at the age of 80 in the US.
