Description
Sohrab Sepehri (Iran, 1928-1980)
Untitled (from the Tree Trunk Series) oil on canvas, framedsigned "Sepheri" and dated "72" (lower right), executed in 1972121 x 161cm (47 5/8 x 63 3/8in).
Provenance:Formerly property from a distinguished private collection, New YorkGifted by the above to the present owner circa 1990'sProperty from a private collection, Montreal"I have never known two poplars to be enemiesI have never witnessed a willow selling its shade to the groundThe elm tree freely bestows its branch to the crow-and wherever there is a leaf- my passion blossoms likes a bush - bathing me in the joy of existence"-Sohrab SepehriThe present lot is an exceptional example of Sohrab Sepehri's celebrated Tree paintings and is one of the largest, most refined and accomplished full scale works from the series ever to appear at auction, and the largest Tree trunk composition to come to market in a decade. Executed in 1972 during Sepehri's extended stay in New York, the depiction of Trees, for Sepehri, represented an escape from the harsh urban environment that he found so oppressive and melancholic, longing for a return to the verdant pastures of his homeland.In its grace, naturalism, and sophistication, the present painting is a work utterly faithful to the tenets of Sepehri's oeuvre; demonstrating an almost perfect confluence of Sepehri's strong representational impulse propelled by a love of the natural landscape of his native of Kashan and the near monastic technical discipline honed from his study and mastery of Eastern painting techniques Poet, artist and intellectual, Sepehri's mild manner and withdrawn persona belied the richness of expression manifest in his works. Enraptured by nature, Sepehri had a deep and profound attachment to the topography of his native Kashan, the "oasis city" where trees and vegetation sprung amidst the arid desert. The genesis of Sepehri's work was firmly rooted in this landscape, and he often bemoaned the long periods of absence from Kashan he had to endure when exhibiting and working abroad.It is during one such excursion in 1970 when Sepehri expressed in a letter to his close friend Ahmad Reza Ahmadi that he felt "desperately alone in the city with no birds and no trees", and it is amidst this pining that the present series was first conceived. Sepeheri had a firm belief in the inherent grace and nobility of the nature he so admired. Inspired by Eastern traditions, with which he had direct contact during travels in India and Japan, Sepehri came to see the purity of the natural world as an antidote to the corruption of the human condition. Removed from the sphere of urban tumult, an unblemished natural world exhibited order, harmony and simplicity. Sepehri's focus however, fell on perhaps nature's most visually striking and symbolically potent inhabitant; the tree. Monolithic, life-exuding, and perpetual, the tree is both the ultimate example of the force of nature, and its symbolic focal point, harbouring all four elements of life; soil within its roots, water within its ducts, expelling life giving oxygen and providing the fuel for fire, its form and significance gripped Sepehri's creative faculties. Sepehri's choice in depicting this singular archetype of nature derives from his belief in the beauty of the concise. Zen tradition encourages the shedding of excess and the absence of the superfluous, to this end Sepehri depicts only trunks, for he was no realist, and was concerned more with the meaning of a tree, its aesthetic essence, than construing its actual physical occurrence in a specified landscape. Combined with this, he employs a limited palette, consisting of coloured grays and dark greens. The limiting of colour to an absolute minimum is a conscious exercise in terseness, echoing the formal restraints of the Zen haiku which are limited to seventeen syllables, and reflecting Sepehri's belief that economy in colour resulted in greater artistic lucidity. Despite this terse palette, Sepehri manages to faithfully capture the texture, complexity and light and dark tonal variations between his tree trunks, delineating gracefully where trunks and branches engage, interlope and separate. Ultimately, for Sepehri, the depiction of a tree was a meditative endeavour, in the Japanese tradition of "hitsuzendo", an attempt at creative self-reflection. Unlike Western traditions where the artist uses his faculties to fashion a work into existence, the Zen painting tradition holds that the "man the art and the work are all one". Sohrab Sepehri was born in 1928 in Kashan. He was and continues to be considered one of the most powerful influences in contemporary Iranian literature, particularly modern poetry. His revolutionary "Free verse", which exhibited a bold replacement of the old, traditional poetic devices with an innovative free flowing approach, is widely considered one of the finest expressions of modern poetry in the Middle East. Sepehri graduated from the Fine Arts College of Tehran University in 1953, and by 1957 he left for France to join the École de Beaux-Arts in Paris. His works were included in the first and second Tehran Biennials and soon after his move to Rome, he also showed at the Venice Biennale in 1958. Sepehri eventually went to Japan in 1960 to study wood engraving. Having shown at the São Paolo Biennal in 1963, he also exhibited at Le Havre in France. By 1970 he was well-travelled, after taking extensive trips to the East and Far East and visiting India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. During this period he also exhibited widely in Europe and North America, including landmark exhibitions at Galerie Cyrus in Paris and Elain Benson Gallery in New York. Sepehri died in Tehran in 1979.Flawlessly executed, the present work is not only superlative in its composition but stems from one of the most creatively fertile years in Sepehri's career, when the artist had no fewer than four major solo exhibitions in Paris, new York and Tehran. Archetypal, exemplary and sublime, the present painting is a work that is truly deserving of the title, "best of breed"
