Life

At a young age, it was discovered that she had a talent for drawing http://www.ir-tmca.com/exhibition/sadr/hosseini.htm, which compelled her father

Father

A father, Pop, Dad, or Papa, is defined as a male parent of any type of offspring. The adjective "paternal" refers to father, parallel to "maternal" for mother...

 to hire a painting tutor to help her work to her potential. Later on, she was educated at the University of Tehran

University of Tehran

The University of Tehran , also known as Tehran University and UT, is Iran's oldest university. Located in Tehran, the university is among the most prestigious in the country, and is consistently selected as the first choice of many applicants in the annual nationwide entrance exam for top Iranian...

 in the Faculty of Fine Arts, from which she graduated in 1949. Mansooreh left Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

  in the early 1950s to live in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, where she furthered her education at the Rome Academy of Fine Arts leading up to her artistic debut at the 28th (XXVIII) Venice Biennial in 1956.

After a moderately successful period in Italy, Mansooreh returned to Iran in 1959 and won several awards in the Tehran Painting Biennial. In 2004 she exhibited at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art

Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art

Tehran's Museum of Contemporary Art is an art museum in Tehran, Iran.Inaugurated in 1977, and built adjacent to Tehran's Laleh Park, the museum was designed by Iranian architect Kamran Diba, who employed elements from traditional Persian architecture. The building can be listed as a contemporary...

.

Styles

Mansooreh is known for having produced works in both figurative

Figurative art

Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...

 and abstract

Abstract art

Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...

 styles. Her works have often included elements of Kufic

Kufic

Kufic is the oldest calligraphic form of the various Arabic scripts and consists of a modified form of the old Nabataean script. Its name is derived from the city of Kufa, Iraq, although it was known in Mesopotamia at least 100 years before the foundation of Kufa. At the time of the emergence of...

 script. She is known, along with Behjat Sadr

Behjat Sadr

Behjat Sadr was an Iranian painter whose works have been exhibited in major cities across the world, such as New York, Paris, and Rome. She was born to parents Mohammad Sadr Mahallati and Ghamar Amini Sadr in Arak in 1924. Sadr began her studies at the University of Tehran faculty of fine arts...

, to use traditional elements of both the Persian culture and that of contemporary Europeans. She is considered to be an experimentalist.

Writer

Mansooreh also wrote many art reviews in various Iranian media. In her critiques she was unbiased, informative, and analytic. For example, in her article Why exhibitions have no viewers? (reviewing Guity Novin

Guity Novin

Guity Novin is an Iranian-Canadian figurative painter, and graphic designer residing in Canada. She classifies her work as Transpressionism, a movement she has introduced.Her works are in private and public collections worldwide....

's exhibition Expression of Silence), published in Kayhan

Kayhan

Kayhan is an influential newspaper in Iran. Directly under the supervision of the Office of the Supreme Leader, it is regarded to be "the most conservative Iranian newspaper."...

 in November, 1971, she observed that Iranian intelligentsia ignored important exhibitions such as the recently held exhibition of Henry Moore

Henry Moore

Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....

 in the National Museum of Iran

National Museum of Iran

The National Museum of Iran is a museum in Tehran, Iran. It is the combination of two museums, the old Muze-ye Irân-e Bâstân , and the modernistic white travertine National Arts Museum , inaugurated in 1972...

. She wrote:

A friend who was just back from Europe was asking me "what’s the matter? Is it possible to see the original works by Henry Moore? This is the event of the century. We have to plan in advance for visiting such an exhibition, we have to be checked by electronic cameras, and security gourds that protect such treasures, etc." and yet when I asked an icon of the Iranian modern poetry in the theatre of museum that “have you visited Henry Moore’s sculptures?” He replied "those torsos? ..yeh, but I thought they are your works?"

Then she moved to her critique of Novin’s work:"Expression of Silence, was a poetic designation for Guity’s exhibition in the Negar Galley." She concluded the article with her verdict:

There was a consistency in her selection of subjects -- a testament to perspicacious and enlightened character of the artist. The choice of colours, selection of gradation of hue, which explicitly used more-or-less the same tonality in all the works, revealed the story of artist’s unfaltering and inquisitive mind.

External links

• Works From Qoqnoos: Iranian Fames and Artistic Works