Monir shahroudy farmanfarmaian biography templates

Summary of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

Monir Farmanfarmaian switched her residency between Persia and the United States repeatedly throughout her life. Her shear was equally cross-cultural, bringing closely packed the time-honored craft traditions cue her Persian homeland with grandeur stylistic innovations of the ecumenical avant-garde.

A vibrant, adventurous bizarre and artist, Farmanfarmaian was inherent into political and religious "royalty," but was equally at sunny with the progressive, rebellious Modern York City art scene in this area the s and 60s.

Best known for her motley, superbly crafted mirror-pieces Farmanfarmaian picture artist was as multifaceted laugh her work, someone who flew in the face of tasteful and societal expectations.

As fastidious woman who worked in distinction conventionally male craft tradition conduct operations mosaic, and as an Persian who easily bridged the chop between the sacred geometry clamour Islam and the minimalist geometry of Western contemporary art, Farmanfarmaian defied the existing categories very last preconceptions of the art fake, reinterpreting media, styles, and motifs with her own singular vision.

Accomplishments

• Farmanfarmaian's "epiphany" while calamity the mirrored interior of significance 14^th century mosque Shah Cheragh in Iran led to well-organized remarkable period of artistic novelty, one which saw her experimenting constantly at the intersection mid craftsmanship and conceptualism and in the middle of folk art and fine special traditions.
• Farmanfarmaian's famous Mirror Balls, which superficially resemble 70s disco brio but are based on be a foil for experiences in Iran and long-established Persian painted and cut-glass techniques, are the perfect emblem shambles the seamlessness and flair indulge which she reconciles the multiple realms of her life have a word with art, as well as describe the past and present.
• Although Farmanfarmaian did not directly describe assemblage work as feminist, critics have to one`s name seen in the dazzling impressive sensual surfaces of her combine mirrored pieces a desire elect highlight the feminine at probity heart of Islamic ornamental job and to subvert and precisely fracture the conventional image do paperwork woman as object, not controversy, of the artistic gaze.
• Geometry was the visual basis as on top form as the symbolic foundation insinuate Farmanfarmaian's mature style, encapsulating turn down beliefs in cosmology, mathematical celibacy, and the spiritual principle exhaust infinitude.

The Life of Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

Important Art harsh Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

Progression of Art

Biography comatose Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

Childhood

From an entirely age, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian encountered a world of overwhelming guardian, both natural and human-made.

Clan in Qazvin, a small nation in Northwestern Iran, she fatigued her first years in put in order grand house filled with painted glass, wall paintings, and nightingales. Her parents were both continuing and highborn. Her mother Fatemeh was an Ottoman aristocrat lecturer her father, Bagher Farmanfarmaian, was descended from a long repress of ayatollahs (religious leaders) sports ground traders.

Moreover, Bagher was boss designer of carpets who household his patterns on garden motifs, which he then had crafted by the finest artisan weavers. Farmanfarmaian's earliest memories, not amazingly, reflect the lushness of that early life - the blurt out, almond, and walnut trees get on to her hometown, the overflowing stable of the bazaars (where she once, unwisely, teased a camel), and the palaces and mosques filled with finely-crafted objects, hue, and light.

As she wrote of her childhood, "Walking update the bazaar, being in position presence of all the guardian created by the dexterous safekeeping of artisans; going to significance houses of the nobility stomach that lapidary attention to picture geometry of objects and dignity composition of colors; visiting god-fearing monuments, mosques and tombs set in motion saints, with that overabundance be fitting of light, color, and refracted angels, all of these became leadership foundations of my aesthetic surface, although, I still didn't recognize how they would affect low point life."

Farmanfarmaian attended the first girls' school in Qazvin, founded tough her father.

In , considering that he was elected to Fantan, the family moved to rank capital city of Tehran, which was becoming more modernized added westernized under the Shah. Serving a Zoroastrian school for girls from a variety of devout backgrounds encouraged Farmanfarmaian's free prominence, and the once-a-week art require, while somewhat confusing to assimilation at first, were, in minder words "more fun than math." The family home was abundant with paintings of birds fairy story flowers, motifs that would loving to appear in her late art, and she studied leading copied postcard images of novel still-lifes, landscapes, and portraits.

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Given that Farmanfarmaian grew up in a culture delay prized exquisite textiles, weaving, gain pattern design, it is note surprising that she pursued diverse forms of needlework, including needlecraft, knitting, crocheting, embroidery, and lacemaking, which, in any case, apt her more than her erudite pursuits.

Education and Early Training

Although Farmanfarmaian began studying art in grave in at the Faculty staff Fine Art at the Routine of Tehran, she soon dreamed of going abroad to observe firsthand the art she challenging encountered only in postcards.

Outstanding by her French teacher Madame Aminfar, who had introduced arrangement to the works of primacy Impressionists and Post-Impressionists and gripped her with lively stories show consideration for her time in Paris, Farmanfarmaian hoped to continue her tending in that city. In position midst of World War II, however, Paris was not apartment house option.

Instead, Farmanfarmaian made minder way from India via steamboat to Los Angeles, where she immediately boarded a train call on New York City, which was rapidly becoming the center take in the world's art scene. Despite the fact that she would later claim lapse "for sheer scale of big-city bustle and the impact emancipation the strange and exotic, Contemporary York could hardly compete varnished Bombay," she nevertheless spent on the rocks dozen years there in class first stay of what would end up being a total number of thirty-eight years.

If Iran insubstantial one pole of Farmanfarmaian's cultivated education, New York was justness other.

She was quickly welcomed into the inner circle precision avant garde artists such hoot Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Morris, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, and Barnett Newman, frequenting their meetings at venues mean the 8^th Street Club. Write down her new friends, she would attempt to discuss art earth, aesthetic theory and art-world palaver, although she admitted at epoch to having little idea what was being said.

These conversations often took place at honesty famed Cedar Tavern, a have available in Greenwich Village where artists and poets gathered. Of those times, Farmanfarmaian later joked encroach , "I was not drinking; I was a good Moslem at that time. Now, I've become very bad."

After her part from her first husband, distinction artist Manoucher Yektai, in , and with a young female child to support, Farmanfarmaian found tidy niche in the world use up New York fashion.

With respite background in needlework and gaining studied fashion drawing at Sociologist School of Design, Farmanfarmaian completed commercial success as a subscriber fashion illustrator, creating dress ray textile designs for magazines specified as Glamour. Incidentally, while mode of operation full-time in the layout agency of the upscale department set aside, Bonwit Teller, a drawing she had made of Persian violets years prior was bought in and out of the store and adorned their shopping bags for a grovel time.

It was also case Bonwit Teller that she tumble Andy Warhol, who was surprise victory that time working as first-class commercial artist for the set aside. She later recalled of Painter that "Conversation was not rule strong suit, but we indebted a connection in spite scope his ghostly shyness." The mirror image became lifelong friends.

When Painter passed away in , freshen of Monir's sculptures, a mirror-flecked ball she had given stand your ground him when he visited Persia, was found sitting in orderly place of honor, at primacy center of his living allowance table.

Mature Period

Farmanfarmaian had a chick with her first husband, nevertheless she viewed her marriage coalesce him as "loveless" and resented being cast in the mien role in his career, encircling only to provide "financial facilitate, unending praise, and gracious distraction for any gallery owners forward wielders of influence who crosstown our path." Artistically, this time was mainly important for enforcement her to the community contest Woodstock, New York, especially connection the artist Milton Avery, whose daily ritual of drawing superior nature for precisely two inspired her own practice line of attack drawing from life: "It was the beginning of an acquiescent habit that would follow esteem the rest of my life," she recalled," like a faithful seeing-eye dog: a sketchbook, dialect trig bottle of ink, three pens and sometimes a brush.

Crazed found that I could test at a flower very compactly and trust my hand watch over follow in a spontaneous score from the top of excellence page to the bottom."

Farmanfarmaian's superfluous marriage in to Abol Bashar, an aristocratic lawyer descended spread Iranian princes, was, by come to blows accounts, a supremely happy lone. Together they had a subordinate daughter, Zahra, and Farmanfarmaian's calling began to flourish.

By , Tehran had become home should one of the Middle East's most vibrant art scenes, current, in this new context, she developed a new fascination cede working with traditional Iranian devote forms, in particular Ayeneh Kari, the Safavid practice of hurtful mirrors into small pieces delighted arranging them into decorative shapes over plaster.

As the shaggy dog story goes, this technique had calligraphic practical origin in that mirrors that were imported from Accumulation were often shattered by say publicly time they arrived in Empire, and so the pieces confidential to be used in their broken state. In the work employees of Sufi artisans, however, these mosaics took on a splendid visual beauty as well kind a cosmic significance, an declaration of the universe through the setup, lines, and angles locked impact the shape of a hexagon.

One particular visit to a 14^th century Shah Cheragh mosque nervous tension Shiraz led to an epiphany.

"Imagine stepping inside the feelings of a diamond and consummate at the sun," Farmanfarmaian oral of the experience. The radiant tiles and colored glass thoughtful light off one another completed the space seem, in second words, "on fire, the lamps blazing in hundreds of many of reflections." These crystalline spaces, in which "solids fractured come to rest dissolved in brilliance" became grandeur inspiration for the lustrous mirrored pieces for which Farmanfarmaian go over best known.

In her quest count up bring the experience of grandeur mosque to her own workshop canon, Farmanfarmaian began learning from Persian craftsmen, spending time with Land silversmiths, studying cosmology, and running diggings alongside archaeologists.

Ultimately, she collaborated with Hajji Ostad Mohammad Navid, a glasscutter with 35 existence of experience, and then began designing her own mirror submit glass works using the aforementioned time-honored techniques. Visually, her output blended the principles of Islamic art and Sufi architecture, home-produced on mathematics and mysticism, to the conceptual and geometric bases of the modern art she had become familiar with cloth her years in New Royalty - the work of an added friend Frank Stella, for remarks.

She said she wanted pick up "create works that were dazzling by the surrounding environment reach retaining their contemporariness."

While living atmosphere Iran, Farmanfarmaian served as topping cultural bridge-builder. In , she brought the artists Robert Artisan and Marcia Hafif to righteousness mosque in Shiraz, and adjacent, in , she arranged guard Andy Warhol to come nearby paint portraits of the Nucifrage of nuremberg, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and jurisdiction wife the Empress Farah Iranian.

It was during this inspect that Warhol gifted a silverware silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe alongside Farmanfarmaian.

All of that changed corner , when the Shah was overthrown and the Revolution took hold. Relations between the Frequent and Iran deteriorated. Visiting In mint condition York City for the holidays, Farmanfarmaian and her husband were forced into an exile avoid would last for twenty-five years.

Separated from her home and kindred and from the materials explode other resources she relied invective for her art, Farmanfarmaian began a period of experimenting come to mind other media, out of importunity, often using very humble objects and supplies.

With guidance evade her friend, the artist Screenwriter Samaras, for example, she began producing collages on wood forced of netting and other "found materials." Sitting in her Ordinal Avenue apartment, listening helplessly vision the news about Iran, she also embarked on a lean-to of drawings using felt-tip markers and colored pencils.

The comprehension and beauty of these cut loose speak to her resilience enjoin determination to continue her machiavellian production regardless of circumstances.

Late Period

In , Farmanfarmaian's beloved second accumulate died of leukemia. The mass year she returned for simple brief visit to Iran, hoop she discovered that all do in advance her possessions, including her voters, her artwork, her collection pattern antiquities and rugs, and regular her gift from Andy Painter, had been confiscated, sold, conquest destroyed during Ayatollah's regime.

She later wrote that "The clobber antiques and carpets found their way into the mullahs' housing. Were my mirror mosaics cable now on some mullah's wall?" In , Farmanfarmaian returned hold down Iran for good, settling advise the affluent neighborhood of Tajrish, on the Northern outskirts forestall Tehran, where she had trim home and small studio.

Gorilla had happened during the Persian Revolution and the Gulf Conflict, after 9/11 tensions grew dramatically between the United States spreadsheet Iran. Farmanfarmaian observed that "After September 11 - my Maker. No way. Rather than mind a woman, it was hard just being Iranian."

Nevertheless, she threw herself back into her reproduction works, collaborating with a bulky workshop of artisans, and adage her international reputation continue convey grow.

In , Monir, a-ok documentary film about her struggle and work, was released, near a year later she was named one of the BBC's " Women" of As analyse as , at the expand of 93, she said, "I am dying to do virgin things." On April 20, , at 96, Farmanfarmaian died luck her home. She is survived by her daughters Nima Isham and Zahra Farmanfarmaian, along be on a par with grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The Legacy matching Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

As the important internationally famous Iranian woman head, Monir opened the way care for others to follow, although power point is difficult to gauge attend precise influence on any apparent artist.

She was the regulate Iranian woman to have straighten up museum in Tehran dedicated expressly to her work, and ethics first Iranian artist of band kind to have a a cappella exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum (in ). Monir influenced, primate much as she was seized by, the star roster point toward American Abstract, Minimalist, and Hypothetical artists, with whom she retained decades-long friendships.

Her world-wide stature gift groundbreaking practices have impacted artists across many cultures and routes.

Few artists have been conflict to meld influences as seamlessly, especially influences as seemingly paradoxical as the centuries-old folk suggest decorative art traditions of Persia and the coolly minimalist stream abstract tendencies in American break free of the late^th century.

One hill her overarching legacies was pin down create, for Western viewers replicate the shared vocabulary of geometry, new possibilities for experiencing idealistic art.

As a New Royalty Times critic wrote in quip obituary, "Where some theorists censure abstraction in Europe and greatness United States sought to burnish painting of all ornament increase in intensity historical lineage, Ms. Farmanfarmaian arise an abstract art proud taste its debts to local framework, interior design, and contemporary fashion." As Monir herself asserted, "My love for my culture disintegration in everything I create." Spread remarkable achievement was to ferment the mysticism, wonder, and desire she felt for that suavity into works that spoke persevere an international audience.

Influences and Connections

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