Central Park

Iranian-American artist Ardeshir Mohassess was a celebrated satirist of contemporary life and politics in Iran. Introduced to the Iranian intelligentsia at a young age by his mother, a poet and educator with a prominent literary salon in Isfahan and Tehran, Mohassess began publishing drawings in Towfiq, Iran’s leading satirical and literary journal in 1951, at the age of thirteen. His work reflected an ongoing fascination with media culture, photographs, newspaper clippings, Hollywood films, as well as Qajar-era lithographs and coffeehouse paintings. Mohassess also collaborated with many of Iran’s leading twentieth-century writers and intellectuals such as Ahmad Shamlu (1925–1999) and Sadeq Hedayat, and was well-known with Iranian artistic circles of the 1960s and 70s.

After moving to New York 1976, his style changed to focus increasingly on compositions influenced by the collapsed perspective and mid-ground composition of Persian miniature painting. At the same time, he rendered figures in a loose and vividly animated line. Scenes depicting literary, courtly and religious themes became common. This drawing is composed of numerous small vignettes in flattened perspective. The vignettes depict quotidian aspects of court life in Iran, alongside scenes of extreme violence at the hands of soldiers. Many of these figures have been cut out and applied to create a composite collage. Photocopies of drawings or prints of birds and trees probably taken from a source other than Mohassess’s own work appear throughout. The drawing references Qajar-era painting, as well as Persian miniature traditions.