Lot 97: Hossein Kazemi (Iranian, 1924-1996)

Hossein Kazemi (Iranian, 1924-1996)
Untitled
signed and dated in Farsi (lower right), signed and dated 'Hosein Kazemi 1970' (on a label affixed to the reverse)
oil on board
38½ x 24¼in. (98.5 x 64cm.)
Executed in 1970 (4)

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner.

"There is one earthly principle and one heavenly principle, and the plant by growing roots into the earth and sprouting towards the heavens faces both principles, unites them and unifies their contrarieties"
(HOSSEIN KAZEMI)

HOSSEIN KAZEMI (1924- 1996)

The following three lots are outstanding examples by the painter, ceramic artist and teacher, Hossein Kazemi, one of the greatest pioneers of Iranian modern art.
Hossein Kazemi started his career as a figural painter and his earliest works were naturalistic. Gradually he began to introduce elements of the Persian miniature into his work and his treatment became ever more stylized. From 1961 onwards, he started experimenting with pure abstraction, and when he returned to figurative painting, as he did with his stone-and-flower paintings of the late 1960s, it was in a more abstracted mould, with strong symbolic overtones. This theme continued for the rest of his career, variations and different combinations of flowers and stones, sometimes lacking one or the other element and becoming increasingly abstract. His growing fascination with the dualistic philosophy of Mithraism of ancient Iran was expressed in all of his mature paintings.

Hossein Kazemi landscapes were constructed from various media including paint, acid and plastofoam. His talent in applying those raw materials enabled him to create the most expressive effects of texture in his compositions. Kazemis goal was to depict relief in nature on every possible medium therefore he is using plywood, canvas, cardboard but also paper as bases. The viewer is free to imagine landscapes, horizon lines, trees and sea shores through the mixture of various colours. This free combination of ideas belongs to the viewer even though the artist himself is describing his work as a principle of contraries to clash of light and darkness... which is the holy secret of unity in plurality and plurality in unity, in an interview for the London Kayhan newspaper in 1993.


PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION, TEHRAN