Golestan Gallery in Tehran will, like in the past years, hold the exhibition ‘100 Works, 100 Artists’ this summer too. The show is set to open on July 22.
Known as the oldest visual arts event run by the private sector in Iran, this year it will present 220 paintings, calligraphy paintings and sculptures from 195 artists, Mehr News Agency reported.
“The presence of artists from outside Tehran and presentation of sculptures are significant in this year’s edition,” gallery director Lili Golestan said.
High quality of artworks as well as reasonable prices are the two factors considered in the 24th edition.
The highest price tag is for a painting by the late contemporary poet Sohrab Sepehri ($70,000); however, in order to attract and encourage people from different social strata to purchase pieces of art, the gallery will also present works costing as low as $30.
Since the gallery motto is “Any Iranian Home, One Art Piece”, it has always paid serious attention towards the ordinary people by providing them with affordable artworks.
Of the 195 artists, 130 are women and 65 men. A total of 190 paintings and calligraphy paintings will be put on display besides 30 sculptures.
Born in Tehran, Lili, 72, studied dress and textile design at the Decorative Art Institute of Paris. Simultaneously, she attended classes on world art history and French literature at La Sorbonne. While in Paris, she also participated in pottery classes.
After she returned home she took up a job as a textile designer at a textile factory. Later, she worked in national television as a dress designer for TV shows.
She quit her TV job after seven years and published her first translation of a novel in 1967: ‘Life, War and Then Nothing’ by Italian author Oriana Fallaci. The book was welcomed and encouraged her to translate more novels. She has since published more than 20 books.
Lili founded Golestan Gallery in 1988 and since then has tried to make it easy for people to buy art, support new talent and young artists and take strong steps to expand the horizons of art in society.
She is the daughter of well-known filmmaker and writer Ebrahim Golestan and sister of the late photojournalist Kaveh Golestan. Filmmaker Mani Haghighi is her son.
The exhibition will run till August 17, at No. 34, Shahid Kamasai Ave., Darouss.
