For Bahman Mohassess, the minotaur was a totemic figure. An ancient symbol of carnality and frustrated power it provided the artist with a shadowy alter-ego and connected him with an art historical lineage that stretched from Ancient Greece right up to the twentieth century. Painted in 1977, Minotauro sulla riva del mare is a rare and hugely important work by the artist that epitomises both his powerfully expressive style and his fascination with this mystical creature.

Born in the city of Rasht in 1931, Bahman Mohassess revealed his artistic aptitude at a young age. Having studied painting as a boy he moved with his family from Rasht to Tehran where he attended the Tehran University Faculty of Fine Arts. He soon became involved in the city’s avant-garde artistic circles, editing a weekly art and literary publication and joining one of Tehran’s established cultural societies. It was during these formative years that Mohassess began to develop his artistic vision, working across the full range of the arts, from theatre direction and poetry translation to sculpture and painting. In 1954, at the age of 23, he moved to Italy to study at the Fine Art Academy of Rome. If the groundwork had been laid in Iran, it was Italy that would prove decisive for the young artist. Mohassess was already familiar with many aspects of European culture but this experience provided a wealth of new influences that informed the development of his own distinctive style.

From the truncated sculptural forms of his figures to the tonality of the textured paintwork, his art bears the unmistakeable marks of Rome. However, the emotional intensity of his work speaks to the artist’s own singular character and experience. For much of his lifetime Mohassess was an enigmatic figure; although hugely admired and a dominant presence among the artistic elite of pre-revolutionary Iran, his relationship with his homeland was troubled. Following the Islamic Revolution much of his public art there was destroyed, and he eventually moved permanently to Italy, retreating from the world and living in self-imposed seclusion. In his later years the artist systematically sought to destroy much of his own work; the surviving pieces are a testament to an artist who was known as ‘the Picasso of Iran’. His work is included in major museum collections worldwide including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Tate Modern in London and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tehran.

Among Mohassess' work, Minotauro sulla riva del mare is a notable masterpiece. The central figure of the minotaur dominates the canvas; its red eye and mouth convey an untamed rage and there is a visceral power contained – indeed, barely restrained – within its muscular physiognomy. The earthy minimalism of the background combines with the sculptural forms of the minotaur’s body to give the impression of a work at once ancient and strikingly modern; Mohassess succeeds in creating an image that alludes both to ancient depictions of the creature (fig. 2) and the work of later artists.

The minotaur is a complex figure. A symbol of a perverted human nature, he is at once dangerously powerful and strangely impotent; trapped in the labyrinthine ways of his own mind, he is perhaps to be pitied as well as feared. There are inevitable comparisons to be drawn with Mohassess’ own life and character, but his interest undoubtedly also lay in the rich artistic heritage of the minotaur, and particularly in the resurgence of interest in the figure during the twentieth century. Most famously, Picasso adopted the minotaur as his alter-ego and the creature appears in many guises in his art (fig. 3). The Surrealists were similarly drawn to the myth both for its Freudian connections and the bestial nature of story’s protagonist. The Surrealist magazine Minotaure took its name from the creature and artists from Picasso and Dalí to Magritte and Man Ray provided cover illustrations inspired by the legendary monster (fig. 4). There are elements of these artists’ work that resonate through Mohassess’ vision, but his minotaur seems to transcend the purely symbolic. There is something in the creature’s stance – the line of his shoulders, the tilt of his head – that communicates a lived experience. The pained muscularity of Mohassess’ minotaur recalls Francis Bacon’s anthropomorphic figures (fig. 5) and in doing so alludes to the existential concerns that underpin much of the Iranian artist’s best work. The result is a powerful and compelling work that embodies Mohassess’ artistic vision in an unflinching and deeply personal interrogation of the human condition.

This work was once in the possession of Mohassess’ trusted founder, Francesco Bruni (fig. 6). Bruni was the owner of the renowned Bruni Foundry, working with many contemporary Italian artists as well as with Mohassess in the execution of his bronze sculptures. Minotauro sulla riva del mare is being offered jointly by the Bruni family and the Mohassess Estate in recognition of both families’ shared connection with this remarkable painting.