Aydin Aghdashloo Solo Exhibition

Painter Aydin Aghdashloo is one of the most recognized artists of modern and contemporary Iranian art. Known for his highly elaborate technique, he has produced a body of work deeply influenced by the socio-political circumstances of his home country, while in dialogue with universal concepts. His style draws on a multiplicity of sources, from Renaissance paintings to Persian art, subverting them in what often becomes poignant critiques of tyranny and destruction of beauty. Born in Rasht, Iran (1940) to immigrant parents, Aghdashloo attended the University of Tehran College of Fine Arts, while personally studying a wide range of sources from Old Masters to Iranian history. Aghdashloo’s first solo exhibition was in Tehran in 1974, where his paramount Memories of Destruction series was first introduced; gouache paintings of meticulously recreated classical masterpieces either depicting or bearing physical marks of disfigurement. He would go on to act as the Cultural and Artistic Director at the Office of Empress of Iran, Farah Pahlavi, contributing as a museologist, cultural diplomat, and policymaker until the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Since then, he has mainly focused on painting, writing, and teaching. Aghdashloo’s wide-ranging interests and expertise has led him to publish nearly a dozen books on contemporary culture, and Iranian art. In 2016 Aghdashloo was awarded Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the Government of France. In 2021 his work was shown alongside masterpieces by the Early Netherlandish painter Hans Memling in Bruges, Belgium, linking the paintings of the two artists.