Lot 22
  • 22

Sohrab Sepehri

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Description

  • Sohrab Sepehri
  • Untitled
  • signed
  • oil on canvas
  • Executed in the late 1960s.

Provenance

Hoor Art Gallery, Tehran
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2007

Catalogue Note

Sohrab Sepehri is not only a poet whose heritage has been celebrated worldwide, but also he is undoubtedly a key figure in Modern Iranian Art, who inspired a generation of artists after him. His compositions were greatly inspired by Western painting and Japanese poetry and art as well as Buddhism, Taoism and Zen philosophy.

In 1965 he began his infamous Tree-Trunk paintings, which revealed his wide ranging cultural and aesthetic influences; integral to this series is the impact of his earlier abstract compositions. Sepehri turned to abstract painting, creating fresh works with the aid of geometrical figures in which squares are increasingly used. But this period was transient, resulting in a scarce number of works executed in this manner.

The thoughtful selection of angles and cohesion of lines in his abstract works eventually resulted in the creation of his well-known Trees series. Inspired by the rational yet intangible aura developed in his abstract works, he recreated the realistic tones explored in these works when depicting his trees; details can be observed in the various pigments and washes evident in the trunks. A notable characteristic is the harmony and cohesion of the coloured brushstrokes next to one another, painted upon a muted plain background, resulting in serene geometric segments unseen in other paintings by the artist.

Each piece of Sepehri's Abstract series includes five to eight colour lines, a restriction the artist imposes on himself, perhaps as personal challenge. Sepehri's artistry is exemplified via his creation of bare lucid tones. The present work is representative of his employment of defined forms using controlled washes of flat colour, confronting the observer with an intellectual experience tthrough the organisation of the pictorial plane. A reflective, philosophical and passionate painter, Sepehri would experiment with various styles, pursuing his own line of thought and maintaining his own style.

Sepehri's abstract works are amongst his most distinctive and are limited in quantity, being mostly kept in public institutions, such as; the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, The Fine Arts Museum at the Saad Abad Complex and the Niavaran Cultural Center. Sepehri’s untimely death ended the life of an inspirational artist and poet who had a visionary and distinctive style. His oeuvre has had a lasting influence on generations of artists in Iran and abroad.