Lot 62: BAHMAN MOHASSESS (IRANIAN, 1931-2010) Untitled (Still Life) signed and date

BAHMAN MOHASSESS (IRANIAN, 1931-2010) Untitled (Still Life) signed and dated ‘B. Mohassess 65’ (lower left); signed ‘B. Mohassess’ (on the reverse) oil on canvas 19¿ x 13 3/4 in. (48.5 x 35cm.) Painted in 1965

PROVENANCE: Galleria d’Arte del Naviglio di Carlo Cardazzo, Milan. Lord Alan Cockburn Brown, Dublin. A.F Vespucci, Milan. Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2016. Considered both a pioneer and infuential artist since the 1960s, Bahman Mohassess is one of the most acclaimed Iranian Modernists, whose life intrigued many art critics and collectors as he remained rather reclusive, mingling with only a few friends and artists. Trained as an apprentice in the atelier of Seyyed Mohammed Habib Mohammedi in Tehran, Mohassess enrolled at the Fine Art Academy in Tehran in the 1950s, but rarely attended classes, preferring to them the gatherings of the Cockfght art and culture society that was established by the Modern and socialist artist Jalil Ziapour and his involvement in the editorial line of literary and art weekly Panjeh Khoroos (Rooster Foot). As such, Mohassess, a progressive artist at heart, he took part in the avant-garde trends of the Iranian art society early in his life and worked closely with artists such as Nima Yooshij and Sohrab Sepehri. Following the coup against Mossadegh in 1953 and the somewhat cultural revolution that led to a wave of censorship within the artistic scene in the capital, Mohassess settled in Italy, a country that would inevitably become his home and where he drew on inspiration from multiple art movements as well as artists such as Giorgio de Chirico, Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso and others. Although Mohassess envisaged the destruction of the individual within Iranian society during the time of Mossadegh, he equally felt out of place in Italy, feeling unable to adjust and restricted by his Iranian identity. This constraint proved to be a troubling issue for him that manifested itself in a sense of isolation depicted in his works. Although he tried very hard to shun Iranian modern Aesthetics at the time, he remained dedicated to his Iranian heritage that revealed itself subtly in his works. The present still life pays homage to his native town of Lahijan, an area of the Caspian Coast, which initially inspired him to engage with his surrounding, painting fsh, fshnets and the sea. Although his oeuvre intended to refect the nothingness so to speak of contemporary culture, Mohassess’ obsession with drastic social and environmental change – particularly of oil spills, profoundly afected his approach to composing his works; an accidental oil spill in the 1960s in Greece and Spain for example can be seen as being referenced in the present work. As the darkness of the background, steeped in black hints at oil and the oil industry, the fsh laying on the table under a seeping sea of black, appears to have turned into hard stone, its gaping mouth and soulless dark eye a symbol of its untimely death. Abandoning any form of perspective, Mohassess challenges the notions of space and time afording a window into the isolated nature of the artist’s disposition, making the present work a unique sentiment of expression that is embedded in his distinctive style of works.