Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian  (1922-2019) was one of the leading artists in contemporary Iranian art who always emphasized geometry and regular, rhythmic forms. By combining the order and structure of traditional art and the abstract approach of Western art, she achieved particular Iranian modernism based on Islamic decorative traditions.

 Farmanfarmaian was born in Qazvin. She came to Tehran with her family as a child. She studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, the University of Tehran as a young woman. After a short time, in 1945, she immigrated to the United States and continued her education in fashion illustration at Parsons The New School for Design and then Cornell University in New York. After graduating, she worked as a fashion and graphic designer in the United States for a while. During that time, she met artists such as Willem de Kooning, Barnett Newman, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol. The impacts of studying in the United States and becoming acquainted with American modernists are visible in her following works.

Monir Farmanfarmaian returned to Iran in 1957. A little later, in 1958, she won the Gold Medal of the Venice Biennale and the Gold Medal of the first Tehran Biennale. Then she made several trips to different parts of the country and became more and more familiar with the Iranian culture and tradition. During these trips, she collected several Ghahveh-Khaneh paintings, reverse glass paintings, traditional jewelry, and some painted window and door frames as well. Farmanfarmaian's travels to different cities gradually inspired her art in the following years.

The artist's early works include the "Flowers" series, reverse glass paintings, and carpet designs; but her most notable works, through which the international art community recognizes her, are the Āina-kāri volumetric works. She achieved her own style of Āina-kāri in the 1960s. These works create an atmosphere similar to a world of mirrors for the audience. The range of her works varies from small spheres with a diameter of 20 centimeters to gigantic works. More important than the shiny appearance, decorative and Āina-kāri designs is the calculated and precise geometry that forms the main essence of these works and shows the fundamental connection between Farmanfarmaian and Iranian historical art. These works are a unique form of a combination of traditional decorative art, geometry, and architectural design, which may be presented for the first time as an independent art.

Farmanfarmaian exhibited her works in several exhibitions inside and outside Iran and once again won a Gold Medal at the Venice Biennale in 1964 and 1966. She held several solo shows in Italy, the United States, France, and Iran during these years. Farmanfarmaian immigrated to New York again after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The form and technique of her works have changed over the years, and for a while, paintings, drawings, and collages replaced volumetric and Āina-kāri works. In the 1990s, she presented different installations and collages from previous artworks and designs executed on carpets and curtains. In 2003, she returned to Iran, and after starting her workshop, she resumed doing Āina-kāri artworks.

In 2014, Bahman Kiarostami made the documentary "Monir" about the life and works of Farmanfarmaian, who had become one of the most important and prolific contemporary artists in the world. Also, in 2017, the Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian Museum was opened in Negarestan Palace as the first single-artist museum dedicated to a female artist in Iran.

The retrospective of the works of Monir Farmanfarmaian at the Guggenheim Museum in New York which was held in 2015, was one of the most critical art events in the world concerning Iranian artists. The show, entitled "Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Infinite Possibility. Mirror Works and Drawings", included selected volumetric works and paintings from her forty years of artistic activity from 1973 to 2014. Many of these works were shown to the public for the first time at the event.

Monir Farmanfarmaian died of old age in 2019. In 2020, a collection of works by this artist from 2003 to 2015 was displayed in a solo show entitled "Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Mirror-works and Drawings" at the James Cohan Gallery in New York. Her works have also been exhibited in numerous exhibitions and art fairs, including the Frieze Los Angeles, and have always received worldwide attention.