Sadeq Tabrizi (1939-2018), a pioneer of calligraphic painting in Iran, will be commemorated at a ceremony on February 22 at Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.
Suffering from liver cancer, Tabrizi had gone to London for medical treatment but passed away there in January at the age of 79.
Three veteran cultural figures will speak at the event about the late artist and his works. They are contemporary painter, art critic and author Aydin Aghdashloo; poet, writer, literary and art critic Javad Mojabi; and sculptor Abbas Mashhadizadeh.
“February 22 is the birth anniversary of the late artist. The event is being organized in collaboration with the Visual Arts Department of the Culture Ministry,” ILNA quoted painter Mehrdad Fallah, a nephew of Tabrizi, as saying.
Holistic Approach
Born in Tehran, Tabrizi was an influential figure in the formation of the Saqqakhaneh art movement, a neo-traditional style of art that derives inspiration from Iranian folk art and culture. He is one of the few Iranian contemporary artists who have made valuable contributions both to the creation and dissection of modern art in Iran.
He can be considered a holistic artist with a multifaceted vision of reality who, in giving dimension to his practice, bestowed new perspectives to Iranian contemporary art, according to the artist’s website Tabrizigalleries.com.
He offered a series of “proposals” which, despite commonalities with other pioneers of the Saqqakhaneh movement, surpassed them with a series of experiments.
Inspired by Mosque Inscriptions
Prerequisites of such a holistic approach can be traced in Tabrizi’s adventurous spirit. Upon graduating from three years of high school in miniature painting, and after employment in some ceramic workshops in 1959, Tabrizi chose to practice painting on pottery. This novel experience gave him an opportunity to work with glaze and fire.
While working on wall inscriptions for a mosque, a tile worker made Tabrizi realize how beautiful inscriptions are, and encouraged him to make a free composition with letters and words. The result was a ceramic panel (70x70 cm) with a new composition in white and azure, the usual colors of inscriptions in mosques. Juxtaposition of letters neither expressed a concept nor conveyed an expression.
The delightful experience encouraged the artist to employ the same technique in painting on jugs, bowls, and plates using ochre and brown colors on cream background, and azure and turquoise on white background.
This led to the emergence of calligraphy in Iranian contemporary art. It can be said that the trend known as “calligraphy-based painting,” which later emerged in the work of Saqqakhaneh painters and again in the work of calligraphers (from a different perspective and through calligraphy-based painting), originated in Tabrizi’s initiative.
Therefore, this incidental stance of the artist in calligraphy and its visual and non-verbal qualities can be considered the first period of his artistic career. The term “incidental” points to the fact that in the second half of the 20th century, western art, which was joined with some delay by Iranian contemporary art, has often incorporated incidents rather than following a school-based approach.
