فارسیAydin Aghdashloo (born November 28, 1944 in Rasht) is an Iranian painter, graphic artist, designer, writer, and art and film critic, and one of the influential figures in contemporary Iranian art. In addition to his artistic activities, he played an important role in the management and formation of Iranian art institutions and was awarded the French Order of Chevalier of Arts and Letters in 2015.
Aghdashloo entered the world of art as a teenager. After immigrating to Tehran, he soon turned to graphic design, textbook illustration, and journalism; he sold his first work at the age of 14 and began working professionally at the age of 16.He studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran for a while, but left his studies unfinished and entered the intellectual sphere in the 1960s by writing art and literary criticism. His interest in manuscripts and ancient works and his experience in restoring them later played an important role in shaping his particular perspective on the concept of erosion, decay, and gradual destruction in his paintings.
In the 1970s, in addition to teaching at the Conservatory of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Decorative Arts, Aghdashloo produced art programs on Iranian National Television.
He played a role in collecting artworks and establishing important art institutions;He was among those involved in establishing the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts and served as its director for a short time. He also supervised the Reza Abbasi Museum and participated in the formation of several other museums, including the Glass and Pottery Museum. His first solo exhibition was held in 1975 at the Iran-America Association.
After the 1979 revolution, he faced a period of stagnation in his work, but in 1979 he turned to graphic design, painting, and private teaching. In the early 1980s, he collaborated with the Iranian Broadcasting Corporation on research and scriptwriting, including on the history of calligraphy, and participated in the production of the television series “Towards the Simorgh” about the history of Iranian painting.He also founded the free painting workshop “Zangar Art Studio”, which became one of the important centers for training the new generation of modern Iranian painters. In the following years, Aghdashloo was also active as an exhibition curator and organizer of Iranian art exhibitions abroad, taking exhibitions of Iranian art to China, Japan, and Italy.He collaborated with the monthly magazine “Film” for many years as a writer and cover designer. Despite his wide standing, he has only held two solo exhibitions in Iran: one in 1975 and the other in 2014.
The main characteristic of Aghdashloo’s art is the combination of masterful skill in classical painting with a surreal, eerie, and worn-out atmosphere. In the pre-revolutionary period, his works were more influenced by the Italian Renaissance and Flemish painting, but inspired by Salvador Dali and then Giorgio de Chirico, he gravitated towards imaginary spaces, suspended objects, and faceless figures.The concept of the “gradual destruction of beauty” became central to his work; paintings that appear to be deliberately scratched, cracked, or fading. After the revolution, elements of Iranian art such as painting and calligraphy became more prominent in his work, replacing direct references to European art.He works mostly with gouache on canvas and sometimes uses soft colors such as turquoise to create a contrast between the visual peace and conceptual sadness of the works.
Among his most important collections are “Memories of Destruction,” “Years of Fire and Snow,” “The Catastrophe of the End Times,” “The Mystery,” “The Intercession of the Angels,” and “Notes from the Garden of Malek.” The two collections “Memories of Destruction” and “Years of Fire and Snow” are considered among the most prominent collections of modern Iranian art.Some of his works are kept in the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Arts, and many are in private collections. One of his works, titled “Memories of Hope,” set a record for sale at the Tehran auction.
In addition to painting, Aghdashloo is a prolific writer and has published hundreds of articles and several books in the fields of art criticism, cinema, art history, and memoirs, including “Of Joys and Regrets,” “Agha Lotfali Suratgar Shirazi,” “Years of Fire and Snow,” “Other Speeches and Conversations,” “Heavenly and Earthly,” and “These Two Words.”
In his personal life, he married Shohreh Aghdashloo in 1972, which ended in 1980. In 1988, he married Firoozeh Athari, with whom he had two children. He lives in Tehran and spends most of his time working and researching art in his private studio, surrounded by inspiring old objects.
Along with the accolades, some critics have considered his works to be more formal than conceptual due to their extensive adaptation of classical and surrealist works, especially de Chirico.