● Birthplace: Rasht
● Website: www.aghdashloo.com
Biography
He is son of Mohammad Beik Aghdashloo (Hajiof) and Nahid Nakhjavan, which was born in 1940 in Afkhara neighborhood of Rasht. His father was a Caucasian immigrant and a member of the Caucasus Equality Party, and his family had also taken their last name from name of a small town. His mother was a grandson of Bahman Mirza son of Abbas Mirza. His father, seeing his decency in painting, took him to the first time ago Habib Mohammadi, painter from Rasht and teacher. Aydin Aghdashloo was 11 when he lost his father, then he went to Tehran with his mother, There he enrolled in the painting classes of Monsieur Basil. In the year 1953, he entered high school jam in the Qolhak neighborhood. His first painting effect was sold when he was 14 years old. 2 years later, he started designing graphics at the familiar Advertising Institute and worked in the propaganda section of the newspaper in the news. Aghdashloo went to Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran at 19 years in 1967, and was deterred from continuing education. His first article in the field of art criticism published in the Journal of Thought and Art, editorial Nasser Vosoughi, and then continued the writing of literary and artistic criticism. In the year 1972, he worked as a partner in a step-advertising company. Two years later and in the year 1974 Master Aghdashloo was the television program: the ways to see the Iranian national Television radio, in the field of visual arts, was developed and continued until 1976. He was teaching in the School of Fine Arts and decorative arts from 1973 to 1978, and during the same years, the Iranian and American Society in Tehran held a individual painting exhibition. The paintings were mostly from the suspended objects, the dummy, and a few related effects to the Renaissance. Master Aghdashloo exhibited a series of books and manuscripts that had collected in Negarestan Museum. He was writing, designing and executing a script called rainbow-paying, which included animated paintings and writing and performing two documentary films on calligraphy and tiling in ancient Iranian architecture. Aydin Aghdashloo, in establishment of Reza Abbasi Museum in 1977, had a effective role and was appointed to its care. Participation in the establishment and planning of Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Kerman Museum and Khorramabad Museum are other activities in this field.
One year after the Islamic Revolution, he resumed his graphic work and taught at the Faculty of Arts of Al-Zahra University, Azad University and Kerman University since 1980. He also delivered more than 100 lectures in Iran and abroad. Aghdashloo started painting on a large scale in 1980 and has since participated in more than 80 group exhibitions. In the early 1960s, he researched and wrote screenplays for two films: History of Calligraphy and Traditional Workshops for the Islamic Republic Broadcasting, and started and taught painting workshops at the Free Workshop: Zangar Art School. In 1983, he collaborated with IRIB in making the series: Towards Simorgh, about the history of Iranian painting from the beginning to the fourteenth century. He also continued to write and make documentaries about Iranian art and made a series in three parts, entitled: Towards Simorgh about history of Iranian painting until the fourteenth century AH for IRIB.
Until 2006, he published several books, including: Single Faces, Mr. Lotfali, the face of Shirazi, and the years of fire and snow. In all his years of activity, he has held individual exhibitions in Iran only three times. The first was in 1975 at the Iran-US Association in Tehran. The second individual exhibition of cover designs in the graphic biennial of the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1999 and the third one, which was held in 2014 at the Gallery of Works in Tehran. Of course, he has participated in various exhibitions around the world. The group exhibition of contemporary Iranian art at the Christie’s exhibition in London, the individual exhibition of paintings and graphics at the Eastern Mediterranean University, the group exhibition of the Arta Gallery in Toronto, Canada are just a few examples. He has also written articles on art and film criticism, art history research, and travelogues. Aghdashloo followed the method of miniaturization and mastery in classical painting. Influenced by the work of Salvador Dali, a Spanish surrealist painter, he painted in free form. It was in this way that he became acquainted in his youth with the illustration of history textbooks written by the ancient Parisian. Master Aghdashloo followed Sandro Botticelli’s style by introducing surreal spaces in his work and painting suspended objects whose shadows fell to the ground. He then turned to the surrealist space of Giorgio Decicerico and, in the Year of the Fire and Snow series, drew characters who did not have faces; In such a way that it can depict their mysterious and illusory subconscious. All of his works in the pre-revolutionary period of 1978 were imitations of the Renaissance and the Flemish school. But after revolution, Iranian art; Like design, painting and calligraphy, it replaced Italian art in his work.
After the Islamic Revolution of 1978 and the eight-year-old war, most of Aghdashloo’s work with the impact of war devastation in the symbol of cottages and desolate landscapes, rotten wooden carved windows with broken glass, old doors with closed-door locks, and the image of deadly blades that did not descend missiles on cities. Emerged. He called his own war works of a single-face painter at 48 years, and the Intercession of Angels, which was a result of depression and unrest caused by war destruction and protest. He has also drawn a few books for the book, a few volumes from Bahram Beyzai, such as a letter, a new Shahnameh, and Sheikh Sharzin’s petition.
After the Islamic Revolution and the Eight-Year War, most of Aghdashloo’s work was influenced by the devastation of war in the symbol of abandoned cottages and landscapes, rotten green wooden windows with broken glass, old doors with rusty locks, and the image of deadly blades marking landing missiles. It was cities that emerged. He called his work during the war the painter’s only face at age of 48 and the intercession of the angels, which expressed the depression and unrest caused by the destruction of war and protest. He has also painted several paintings for several volumes of the book by Bahram Beizai, such as: Ayarnameh, Dibacheh Novin Shahnameh, and Sheikh Sherzin’s scroll.
In 1972, Aghdashloo married Shohreh Vaziri Tabar, a theater and cinema actress, known by her stage name Shohreh Aghdashloo. Their marriage lasted until 1980. After the separation, Shohreh left Iran. Aydin remarried in 1981 to Firoozeh Athari, a graduate student of architecture, who was one of his own students, and had a son and a daughter, Takin, born in 1982, and Tara, born in 1987. Aydin Aghdashloo, at a ceremony held on Tuesday, January 13, 2016 at French Embassy in Iran, received Order of Arts and Literature of French Knight.
Works
2004 – Night – Director: Omid Bankdar and Keyvan Ali Mohammadi / Costume Design
1993 – Descent – Director: Ahmad Reza Motamedi / Poster Design
1985 – Mirza Nowruz Shoes – Director: Mohammad Motusalani and Written by Dariush Farhang / Poster Design
1982 – Haji Washington – Director: Ali Hatami / Poster Design
Notes
Aghdashloo’s writings on contemporary and past visual arts in Iran and the world have been in areas such as ancient Iranian art, miniature, painting, pottery, tiling, and film criticism. He is a fan of Iranian-Islamic art and calligraphy. He has tried to introduce and expose old artists such as Mirza Reza Kalhor, Agha Lotfali Shirazi, and calligraphers and painters of the 12th and 13th lunar centuries. He has also written travelogues of his travels to Switzerland and New York in the United States.
Bibliography
1974 – 1991 – From the joys and sorrows – Selected articles – Aban Book Publications
1974- 2014 – The Last Word – Collection of Articles – Aban Book Publications
1974 – 2011 – From far and near – 45 articles and talks about cinema – Aban Book Publications
1999 – 2001 – Speeches and Other Conversations – Selected Articles and Conversations – Aban Book Publications
– Mr. Lotfali Shirazi’s face – About Lotfali Shirazi, Qajar painter
– Age of Fire and Snow – Works related to the collection of the same name – Aban Book Publications
– From hidden and hidden – long conversation with Asghar Abdollahi and Mohammad Abdi
– Heavenly and Earthly – A Look at Iranian Calligraphy from the Beginning to the Present – Long Conversation with Qassem Hasheminejad – Aban Book Publications
– These two letters – a collection of his articles in various fields and times in magazines and newspapers
– The other half – Aghdashloo’s collection of traditional works and restoration includes examples of his works in the Reza Abbasi Museum
Books: Finding And Hiding
A Review of Aydin Aghdashloo’s Life
The book Hidden and Hidden contains conversations with Aydin Aghdashloo. These conversations were conducted by Asghar Abdollahi and Mohammad Abdi. The first interview session will be held in late December 1997 and the last in June 1999. The book has a preface, and the dialogues are arranged in thirteen sessions, and at the end of the year is Aydin Aghdashloo’s life. Follow the introduction of the book from the hidden. In the first volume of the book, the interviewers acknowledge that this book may be different from the usual conversations. They did not try to constantly ask questions, only made a spark and allowed him to speak, and wherever Aydin Aghdashloo’s words on that particular subject came to an end, they started the next spark. The book deals with the various aspects of his personality, work and life from the beginning to the end. And in addition to his personal life, the passage of culture, history, literature, and art of this border and landscape is viewed from the perspective of his observations and research.
The conversation begins with Aghdashloo’s childhood. Aydin Aghdashloo’s father died in 1951, and only three years after his father’s death, at the age of fourteen, he entered the labor market and painted and sold. And this is the beginning of his artistic work. He started graphic design at the age of sixteen. And at the age of fourteen or fifteen, he began to buy and collect manuscripts from Asadullah Shirazi, collecting and collecting collections of calligraphy, painting, and other Iranian arts, all of which were donated in 1975, one hundred and twenty-thirty books, manuscripts, and miniatures. Sold to the Negarestan Museum.
Sometimes I would buy a cheap damaged line that read with my budget, buy it, and often borrow it. As I got older, I became more and more popular among antique dealers, and later the lines of my collection reached thirty or forty pieces. I was required to research courses, methods, and calligraphers, and I have continued to do so to this day. And not buying! The publication of the Journal of Thought and Art led us to gain an understanding and experience that would not otherwise be possible. Looking back, I see that with the exception of a few people from the previous generation, people like Nima or Hedayat, we met almost all the elders of our generation, the elders who remained great over the years, and the elders who became smaller and smaller. Perhaps they were based on the same mud and mud that was not terrifying and high, but the swing of the flood does not bring the flood of time. It was an opportunity for us to get to know and touch the different aspects of the culture that was developing and growing in the 1940s.
A teacher is another part of his personality. The part where he says, “I’ve talked very little about my teacher.” Others have usually taken my work less seriously. It’s as if the teacher I hired didn’t care much for my life. If I think that a teacher has played a major role in the various pursuits I have pursued.
Aydin Aghdashloo’s works of art are a gradual destruction of the idea of death. Two collections of memories of destruction and years of fire and snow are among the most important collections of new arts in Iran. In this book, he describes in detail the painters he was influenced by, as well as the origins of the idea and thought of his paintings. He generally says of the various periods and paintings he has painted that he has always been very committed to painting whatever he likes. Things they loved like crazy. These include broken tiles, her mother’s face, and Iranian art.
As a result, the painting reflects the temptations of Adam’s life from the book of Adam’s life. So if painting is the same as life, it should make one change, understand more, know more, and discover and understand newer dimensions.
