Paintings by the late well-known Iranian artist, Behjat Sadr, are exhibited at Abanbar and Aria art galleries in Tehran.
As the third project of the art event ‘A Review of Iranian Modern Art’, both galleries are jointly presenting 80 paintings and collages by the artist, under the title ‘Trace Through the Black’, Honaronline reported.
The exhibition opened on January 22 and runs through February 12, spanning over four decades of the modernist painter’s oeuvre.
Head of Aria Gallery, Aria Eqbal said: “The exhibition explores Sadr’s artistic and intellectual heritage, with archival material alongside and presents a rare selection of masterpieces from her early dabbling with ‘abstraction informelle’ in the 1950s, to her experimentation around organic forms, trace making and hallucinatory networks of lines throughout the 1960s and 1970s and up until her ‘collage’ years and the irrepressible return to her world of futuristic nostalgia.”
The masterpieces have been given by the artist’s daughter and several private collectors.
A comprehensive booklet on the artist’s paintings, memories, photos and notes were unveiled at the opening ceremony. “The book provides complete information about the artist,” Eqbal added.
A professional session and video clips on Sadr and her artworks are among the additional programs during the three-week event.
Aria Art Gallery is located at No. 10, Zarrin Alley, Vali-e Asr Ave. and Abanbar Art Gallery at No. 2, Roshan Manesh Alley, Khaqani St., Enqelab Avenue.
Influential
Behjat Sadr (1924-2009) is regarded as one of Iran’s most influential and radical modern painters due to her abstract paintings of paradoxical traces that utilize “a palette knife on canvases to create impressionistic paintings featuring visual rhythm, movement and geometric shapes.”
Sadr developed the method in the 1950’s, bringing together European modernism and modernity in Iran.
Her paintings obsessively try to overcome the boundaries separating the abstract and the figurative, resulting in explorations of material and texture. A pioneer of the visual arts in Iran, she was one of the first women artists and academics to appear at international biennales in the early 1960s.
Her works have been exhibited in major cities across the world including New York, Paris, and Rome.
