Ali Asghar Masoumi
Ali Asghar Masoumi was born in 1312 in Kangavar city of Kermanshah province. Masoumi traveled to Tehran as a teenager and graduated from Kamalul Molk Art Academy in 1334. He then continued his studies at the Iranian Decorative Arts Conservatory and received a diploma in Iranian Decorative Arts in 1338. In the following, we will read the artistic history and life of this late artist in detail.
“My father was one of the owners of Kangavar, who also held a government job, the head of the Kangavar Grain Department.” Kangavar is a city with beautiful scenery and 92 km northeast of Kermanshah. “It has five very beautiful hills. When we look from above, they are exactly like five people who are chatting in each other’s ears. These hills become very beautiful in spring. “At that time, when I was still small, there was no news of tall buildings, electric poles, the sound of horns and the traffic of cars. I used to sit on the height of one of the hills and for hours I would look at the scenery in front of me, which was full of flowers and plants in the spring, and I would be enchanted.”
Ali Asghar was born in a large family with a total of eleven siblings and a large and old house. A house near the market and between the main street and Imamzadeh
“Behind our house, there was an abandoned house, but with a very beautiful architecture, whose door, wall and ceiling were full of carvings. Very beautiful carvings, which every time, when we went there with my fellow players, while the happy cheering of playful children, in the yard and building of the house, I felt safe, I watched these paintings with pleasure for a long time. “Later, I realized that patina and using old color in my works is an influence of that era, because it gave me this mentality that many times everything that is old has dignity.” Abandoned and ruined places in the children’s world are full of secrets, illusions and fantasy, and part of the childhood time was spent searching to discover these secrets. “In our neighborhood there was an old, dilapidated and abandoned power house that was full of bats. When we looked inside from the roof, we saw many bats flying around. Sometimes, we dared ourselves and with the help of our teammates, we went from the top into the dungeon. When we were too scared, they pulled us up.” In a memory of his childhood, he says: “The house had two floors, and in one of the large rooms downstairs, there were carpets, which my sisters wove. Weaving these carpets was not for earning a living, but a means to fill their free time, and we trampled on their handwovens ourselves. Seeing the geometric patterns of carpets, flowers, colors and simplified animals was really a strange dream for me.” Gradually, the doors and walls were filled with his designs, and at the beginning of school, the stories and pictures of textbooks, another excuse for his “imagining”, notebook and book pages also became a place for “imagining”. “In the second grade of elementary school, I drew some sheep, a shepherd and a wolf for the story of the liar shepherd and in the margin of the book.” “During those years and in the spring season, I had no desire to go to the classroom. For this reason, I used to run away from school and go on foot to a village six kilometers from Kangavar and stare at the scenery there. At the age of eight, he came to Kermanshah with his family from the small town of Kangavar and started writing names in elementary school. His interest in painting and the beautiful works he drew were noticed. First family, then classmates and maybe teachers. Then, with his enthusiasm, he found a free drawing class. “A gentleman named Samimi had just been transferred from Tehran to Kermanshah. He used to paint, he was in the army and he opened a painting workshop in his own house. I was 16 when I was sent to him. It was there that I got acquainted with canvas, easel, oil paint, Rubens, Rembrandt, Tissin, etc. Seeing my interest, he gave me the opportunity to use his easel, to see his paintings, and whenever he painted from the ovens or vaults, he took me with him. There I witnessed his struggle to draw nature, and I saw how he would turn the sky purple to show its intoxicated state and the heat of summer. It was fascinating and strange to me. Since then, I also tend to paint directly from nature. “Painting became my main interest from the age of sixteen and I didn’t want to do anything else.”
One of our family friends who lived in Tehran, when he saw his interest and taste, recommended that he be sent to Tehran to study painting. His interest also persuaded his father. So he came to Tehran. (1329) He spent one year taking the (ninth) cycle and then enrolled in Kamalul-Molk Conservatory. (1330-1334) “After four years of training from the teachers: Hossein Sheikh, Mahmoud Olya, Rafi Hadati, etc. and painting from nature, I realized that creating nature is not my job and I have no desire to do it. I would like to work in the field of Iranian painting and create fantasy like the painters of the Qajar or Safavid periods or like the coffee house painters. Therefore, another four years were spent studying at the “Art of Decorative Arts of Iran”. (1338-1338) “Our teachers were mostly practical and experimental artists and did not have much theoretical knowledge. To compensate for this deficiency, professors such as Jalal Al-Ahmed, Simin Daneshvar, Parviz Marzban, Shokoh Math, Dr. Kihani, etc. were used to teach theoretical courses. The professors of practical courses were; Hossein Behzad, Mohammad Ali Zawiya, Pashaei, Hadi Aghdasi, Ali Rukhsaz, Ali Karimi, Nusratullah Yousefi, Hossein Altafi and. Subjects included miniatures, gilding, poetry, flowers and chickens, tile design, carpet design, etc. “Miniature training was often based on the works of Haj Mosvaral-Mulki and sometimes from the works of Behzad. Ali Rokhsaz used to teach us mosaic, where we made a landscape by putting colored stones together, and it was not very interesting for me. I preferred not to copy and asked more questions. This act of copying caused Professor Behzad to be very upset with me and I was deprived of my studies for a year.”
When Ali Asghar Masoumi decided to study at the Conservatory of Decorative Arts, he was aware that this knowledge or need, in addition to teachers such as Al-Ahmad, Daneshvar, Marzban and the debates about modern art and its relationship with the contemporary world and with the changing way of life of people in the West, convinced him that it was not appropriate to continue painting in the past and that a new way should be found. “Together with two of my classmates at the Conservatory of Decorative Arts, we decided to form a research team and investigate everything we had questions about and explain the results to each other.” Combining his teachings at the Academy of Decorative Arts with the visual achievements of Western art became an idea that he pursued. “My education at the Kamal-ul-Molk Conservatory and the Conservatory of Decorative Arts gave me the opportunity to use both naturalism and the symmetrical order and geometric accuracy that was in Iranian art.” After his diploma, he held his first solo exhibition in the “New Art” gallery in 1343. In the introduction of the booklet printed on this occasion, he wrote: “These works can be divided into two categories. The first category is the works that were done with the influence of Western art, just for the purpose of knowledge and study. The second category is works that can be called miniatures. And this is the way I follow. Creating a way that is able to show the life of the Iranian people to the world today, and the world considers it with all its characteristics to belong to the Iranian environment. What should be added to this treasure of the past is the contemporary life of Iran, reflecting the developments of the last half century, and for us who have had a school of art in every period of history, wandering and fumbling in the art of the West cannot be tolerated, and we should be able to naturally express our specific Iranian feelings in today’s artistic form as simply as we speak Persian. Let’s show everything we are honestly and without hypocrisy. It is up to each of us to think, study and work continuously and with the awareness of the artistic poverty of our time, to take a corner of this work and share the fruits of our experiences with each other so that we can overcome this heavy silence, with hatred, and offer valuable art to the world that is staring at the works of this land.
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Being in the field of activities related to graphics introduced him to a large number of attendees and activists in the field of graphics. These acquaintances led to closer cooperation after a while. “In 1346, my old friend and colleague, Morteza Mamiz, was living in Paris, that same year, I joined him and we were there for about seven months. During that period of time, I saw about 120 of the first-class films in the history of cinema at the Paris Cinematheque. During those years, I had a bad addiction to filmmaking and cinema. After returning from Paris, together with Memiz, Mothaghali and Farhad Bashart, we established Company 42 to do advertising work. Reza Nurbakhtiar also worked as a photographer in our group. In 1346, as an illustrator, he participated in a group work to publish Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh book. “Mohammed Jafar Mahjoub” for text review, “Javad Sharifi” for calligraphy, “Mohammed Ahsaee” for page layout, “Mohammed Bahrami” for color illustration, and “Masoorul Malki” also contributed to the poetry of this book. Completing this book took about four years, and during this time, Masoumi executed about 250 black and white sketches with a rapid pen and on Stenbach cardboard. The capital that was spent on this book at that time (1350) was about eight million tomans and after printing it was sold for seven hundred tomans. “I have done six animated films for the Center for Intellectual Development, National Gas Company, Food Company, National Shoe Company and Son Up, in addition to a fictional film called “Kafterbaz” that I made on the order of the Television Research Center. Among the other side jobs, one was the formation and registration of Tehran’s graphic artists union, which was registered in 1353 after three or four years of running. Cooperation in the illustration of textbooks (1344-1350) and cooperation with Franklin Publishing House (1355-1350) are among other activities of Ali Asghar Masoumi. The activity in the field of graphic works led to the second solo exhibition of his works, twelve years later, first at “Seyhoun” Gallery and then at “Ngarkhane Tehran” in 1354. And until 1356, he participated in several group exhibitions inside and outside the country. The years of the revolution and later during the war, became an incentive for Ali Asghar Masoumi to paint the subjects related to those years based on his own style. Including a painting with dimensions of 180 x 130 cm with oil paint named “Fath Al-Mebin”. which is not dissimilar to the screen paintings of coffee house painters. The “Operation of Fateh al-Mobin” was the first important victory of Iran in the war with Iraq. “At the same time that I felt hatred towards the war, I tried to portray the scenes of people’s aid and their beliefs in a description of a religious and at the same time patriotic war. To do this, which took nearly nine months and ten to twelve hours a day, I had to do part of it by placing the board on the floor. For this purpose, on both sides of the canvas, I placed some bricks and placed boards on them so that I could work bent over and in very difficult conditions. Ali Asghar Masoumi left Iran for Spain in 1362. He stayed in that country for five years, continued painting and made a living by selling them, and held the third solo exhibition of his paintings in 1367 in Spain. Then he immigrated to Canada and became a citizen there. After holding these exhibitions, he found a more regular routine and presented his works in Canada, America and France. “While working with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, I was writing an article for a Persian-language magazine called “Pedideh” about the basics of “modern art”. Also, together with two Iranians living in Canada, we established an art workshop for the artistic activities of Iranians living in Montreal. Teaching art to children is another activity that I have also done.” In 2003, after more than twenty years, since his last exhibition in Iran, he exhibited his works again in Sihon Gallery. Ali Asghar Masoumi divides his works into several parts in terms of the form of work: 1- Revealing the poetic qualities of nature: In this category of works, nature is the model of the artist. He presents the poetry of his work by reducing and erasing the distance between darks and lights, using gray shades and a moment he chooses from nature. 2- Safavid and Qajar periods: In these two parts of his works, he uses the patterns, themes and combinations used in the frescoes and single figures of the Isfahan school in the Safavid period and Qajar “court portraiture”. “I use combinations, but my works in terms of construction have nothing to do with the works of these courses. A lot of work has been done on the design and color of my works and it has been combined with my academic knowledge. The clothes and movements are based on the patterns of this period. Instead, I try to take them forward and evolve them, but at the same time, for example, in the hand I’m making, I don’t care about the anatomy of it. Rather, I pay attention to its composition and structure. I did not manipulate the main structure that is in the Safavid and Qajar paintings, but I try to move it in the direction of my desire. 3- Flower and bird works: This part of the works are based on flower and bird paintings in the late Safavid period and the Zand and Qajar periods. “In the past, these paintings were mostly used for pencil cases, book covers, Quran pages and mirror covers. But I tried to change its consumption when I was dealing with flowers and chicken. Because now neither notebooks nor book work is popular as it was in the past, I turned it into a still life. For this purpose, I used different techniques. For example, in the past, if someone wanted to make a pink flower supposedly the size of the back of a nail, they would first make this small area pink, then polish it with another brush, with tiny dots, to find a smooth state. But when I used this subject in the form of still life, it became big. It was no longer possible to implement it in the past and perspective should also be used in color. Since he had found a half-volume painting from the Qajar period, I also gave it a half-volume and worked with keeping the new space and composition, and with a different construction and execution. 4- Mixed works: In this category of works, Masoumi used a combination of Safavid and Qajar methods and abstract, textured and line (writing) levels. One of the main aspects of my work is Iranian miniatures. I try to follow the elements of miniature and combine them with modern art, while maintaining our own identity and identity, not to be left out of the contemporary modern world. Ali Akbar Masoumi, in an interview and explaining his work method, says: “My reference to fantasy painting in the past was done with full awareness and study, it was the starting point and movement in changing my perspective and correcting the future method of my works. In other words, the western classical painting method that was brought to Iran since the time of Naser al-Din Shah, did not advance anything and was not connected to the artistic past of our country. Our painters, who were the heirs of Iran’s pictorial, precise and orderly, geometric and decorative arts, and came from calligraphy and gilding, and followed the poetry and introspection of Iranian culture, faced fascination, self-loss, and an identity crisis when confronted with Western classical painting. Because, on the one hand, they were unaware of the inner goals and existential philosophy of this school, and on the other hand, the solid foundation, depth perception with the help of perspective, anatomy, precise design from nature, the use of light and shadow with the help of paint and oil, showing historical and religious scenes with the aim of valuing and reviving humanism, emphasizing the originality of reason and creating a sense of balance in this way were set aside in Iran, and instead of all this, pure imitation of the show The subtleties and minutes of ordinary life became popular. And finally, all this had come to replace the Pazirak carpet, Lorestan bronze sculptures, Amalesh clay cows, Ray and Nishapur ceramic plate bowls, gold and silver cups of the Sassanid period, the luxurious gilding of the Timurid era, the miniatures of Kamaluddin Behzad, Mohammad Zaman, Reza Abbasi, Ali Ashraf, Agha Sadiq, Mehr Ali and Ismail Jalaiir. It’s been a thousand years, I decided not to be a close follower and imitator, and with inspiration and working on all the rich support of Iranian art, I have stretched my works with love and patience until today. Ali Asghar Masoumi is from the generation of modernist Iranian painters who came to the field in the 1940s and gave full wings to the movement that started to create a national art with global characteristics in the visual arts at the same time as poetry, fiction, theater and cinema. The main effort of these artists was to give an Iranian identity to their works in a way that could communicate with the global audience. Saqaqhana school emerged from this movement in the same years. Masoumi, however, while interacting with the artists of this group, traveled his way independently like a number of other famous painters of that period, including Sohrab Sepehri, who was also a poet, and like him, at least in the beginning, he was mostly preoccupied with the beauty of the nature of his hometown – Kangavar, and the mystical attractions of Eastern art and – especially and more persistently – Iranian miniatures; And therefore, he did not have much to do with elements such as locks, doors and windows of the saqaqhana and other signs of the religious places of the followers of the new school, such as Zindarudi and Tanavoli. In order to reach this position, during three decades away from Iran, he remained loyal to his style and many of the principles he established for his work from the very beginning, and brought his art to honesty and perfection, which is accompanied by poetry. In his works, there is not much of the external manifestations of contemporary life, either western or eastern, but he is secretly and mysteriously involved in the history of the art of painting and its masters, so perhaps today he can be considered a citizen of the world of art and painting rather than a resident of this or any other land. He held 15 solo exhibitions in Iran, America, Canada, France, Spain and 7 group exhibitions in Iran, Canada, Italy, China, and America. According to Aziz Motazadi, writer and art critic, “Ali Asghar Masoumi was a generation of modernist Iranian painters who came to the field in the 1940s and gave full wings to the movement that had started to create a national art with global characteristics in the visual arts at the same time as poetry, fiction, theater and cinema”. Mr. Motazadi, who was in contact with Masoumi during the years of emigration in Canada, says: “The main effort of these artists was to give an Iranian identity to their works in a way that could communicate with the global audience. The Saqaqhana school emerged from the heart of this movement in the same years.”