In elementary school, he was very interested in geography and drawing maps. Coloring the map of different countries with bright red, yellow, green and blue colors was his first contact with coloring. But somewhere he said that in the third grade of primary school, his song teacher noticed another ability in him; He had a very sensitive phone. A great privilege that, according to his teacher, could make him a good musician. He informs his father about this. But the father’s mentality towards music and playing is a singer, and he considers this to be contemptible for his family and lineage and completely opposes it. The incident that Waziri Moghadam still remembers with regret is that: “I loved music.” I should have become a musician, not a painter, and this is the regret that remains in my heart.” Elementary school and the first years of high school pass without any special events. Mohsen, like hundreds of children like him, spends his days without having a suitable space to show his talents. Sometimes he paints, but his passion is music. He even convinces his father to buy him a violin. He tries all summer vacation to make a good sound out of it, but he doesn’t succeed. No matter how much he insists to his father to get a teacher for him, he does not accept. The end of the story is that his father crushes the violin. Of course, later, because of his interest in music, when he was studying at the College of Fine Arts, he practiced playing the violin for 2 years. When Mohsen was fifteen years old, he was transferred to Rezaiyeh (Urumiyah) and settled there with his family. At the age of 16, in the same city, he experimented with oil painting for the first time. But what led him to oil painting and painting is interesting, which we will read below.

 In Urmia, a father falls in love with a young girl and divorces her mother to marry her. A desire that tears apart the foundation of his family and this is the beginning of his confusion – his endless confusions. Baba Jovan’s wife had a small age difference with Mohsen and she did not see him and her two younger sisters at all. He pushes them away with a strange indifference and gradually transfers this indifference to his father, and finally his father asks him to go to Tehran. But where? It’s up to him. He is kicked out of the house. He goes to Tehran. It is the beginning of summer vacation and he has just finished 10th grade.

1320 is the peak of the effects of the Second World War, the presence of the Allies in Iran and the years of crisis and famine. He goes to his maternal grandmother in Tehran. A very respectable and noble old woman who spent her life with little discipline. “I was very ashamed to sit at his table, but I had no other place. From the very beginning, I was thinking of a way to earn money and I did not hesitate to do any work or help for the old woman. The summer is slowly coming to an end and I have to continue my studies in any way possible. But with what money and with what support?” At the suggestion of one of the families, he had to enroll in the Karaj Agricultural College, which was run around the clock and at the expense of the government. He spends two years in the conservatory with a poor hand. “I didn’t even have money with which I could come to Tehran to see my mother and sister, while my relatives were rich and famous people, but my pride did not allow me to ask anything from them.” In the conservatory, he met good-natured people who sometimes supported him. Conditions are provided to get acquainted with painting and music in a better way. “The German professor, who was the head of forestry and had a lot of interest in Iran, held a painting class in the conservatory and in his office and taught interested students how to draw and paint plants. I had become very interested in botany and zoology. This gentleman, who noticed my interest, asked me to go to his class. From the pictures he gave me, I would draw detailed designs and he would remind me of some points from time to time. After some time, he gave me watercolor and taught me how to work with it. One day I asked him to teach me how to paint faces with Venetian oil paint. He took my hand and took me to the side of the staircase. He said: Minister, go up these stairs! I slowly started to climb the stairs. He said: Not like this, go from the first step to the last step! I said: I can’t. said: Art is the same. You have to learn step by step and this was the first important lesson I learned about art from him.«

His interest in music also introduced him to a teacher who played the violin and he studied it for a while under his supervision.

When summer came, the conservatory was closed and the students went to their homes, Mohsen had nowhere to go. They allowed him to stay there. The problem of food is also solved by finding a job where the botanical garden was very large. The second year of the conservatory is also difficult, but in any way it was. His lesson was over and his anxiety and worries came to an end. Desperate, he goes to his father’s house, who came to Tehran and lived in a big house in the north of the city.

But this time he will be kicked out of his father’s house forever. Helplessly, he goes to his mother who lived with one of his relatives. Fortunately, it is accepted there with open arms. They also provide him with a job and he manages to save some money during the three months of summer.

“I was very interested in drawing people’s faces from photos, and I had learned how to do this by making squares of photos and cardboard. In Lalezar, an Armenian painter had a shop where he painted landscape paintings and rural scenes, and in short, what people liked. Whenever I passed by his shop, I looked at the paintings carefully from behind the glass. I once saw him painting a soldier’s face. The soldier was sitting in front of him and he was drawing his face on a small canvas. I was really surprised by the similarity between the picture and the soldier’s face. It was unimaginable for me that it would be possible to draw from reality. I left there crying. I said, God, if this is the painting, then what am I doing?

Little by little, the summer was coming to an end and Mohsen Vaziri – perhaps to make up for his father’s lack of love – was determined to get a higher education by any means possible. But his five-year diploma was considered incomplete and he had to study for another year, but where and with what possibility? By chance, he meets one of his friends who was in his class in Ahvaz. When he asks her how she is and notices her concern about continuing her studies, he advises her to enroll in the College of Fine Arts for painting. “Did the painting work? But when I found out that they were giving a bachelor’s degree, after a few days of hesitation, I finally registered at the last minute and passed the exam two days later.” A figure with a height of more than two meters, which was accurately copied from the original work, and was the model designed by the students.

“I, who had never drawn from objects and reality, had to draw the tangled body of the slave on 70×100 cardboard with charcoal. From the moment the exam started, which was nine in the morning until four in the evening, I was the last one to leave the meeting, without even going out for lunch, I drew and deleted the figure several times. I learned from everyone who passed by me. In the end, my work was so dirty and stained that I had to ask for another piece of cardboard and continued my work again.” As luck would have it, Vaziri was accepted into the Faculty of Fine Arts of Tehran University in 1322, and a new chapter in his hectic life began.

The years 1328-1332 coincide with the beginning of the modernism movement in Iranian painting, and like many of his contemporaries, Vaziri Moghadam was influenced by the Impressionists and Van Gogh. He paints landscapes, single faces, scenes of people’s lives and tries to transform traditional themes into a new format. A collection of these paintings were displayed in 1331 at the Iran-American Association as his first solo exhibition.

In any case, under these conditions, a minister enters the Faculty of Fine Arts, which is still located in the basement of the Technical Faculty. Ali Mohammad Heydarian and Mrs. Amin Far are professors of the faculty, and he takes classes with artists such as Manouchehr Shibani, Mansoura Hosseini, and Sudabah Ganji. In addition, no one has graduated from the college yet, and people like Hamidi, Kazemi, Javadipour, Ziapour, etc. are still in the college. Therefore, here he gets acquainted with painting from another perspective. Soon, the world of painting becomes wider for him, and the library becomes an important place to quench his thirst. He entered the college just to get a bachelor’s degree, now it is as if he has found something lost. What was denied to him all this time, he finds there. His soul wakes up and tries with all his heart. Day and night effort. But really, to what extent will the space and facilities be favorable for him? He had some money saved from his summer job and he is lucky enough to be given a small room as a dormitory, but how can he provide food, clothes and painting expenses? In order to support his expenses, he engages in tasks such as supervising the kitchen, distributing food, designing decor in one of Tehran’s theaters, modeling for students, etc., and makes ends meet with the little money he earns. But this money would never cover his expenses. “My clothes were old and I used to eat outside the college to pay less for food. However, most of the time I was starving to be able to draw with any medium and I drew most of the time.

My classmates nicknamed me the design machine. I used regular charcoal instead of design charcoal. I often drew on the big boards that the upper year students did their projects on. I would draw and erase on each board over and over again. This was mostly my job in college. “At night, when I went to the dormitory, I was either making sculptures or playing the violin until late, although after a while I had to give up music because of the pressure of my work.”

“I learned precision in design from Professor Ali Mohammad Heydarian, but Ms. Amin Far did not help me much. Every time he saw our work, he just said, “I like this.” or “I don’t like this” would not explain. But my most important spiritual teacher was Engineer Foroughi. He was an architect and painter and he taught at the college and was very effective in changing my mindset and gave me good guidance about my work. When Russian painting was spreading in the college and the country, during his trip to France, he brought a large number of paintings and lithographs from the works of French impressionist and post-impressionist painters and installed them on the walls of the college. Seeing these works had a great impact on me. I recognized the color and form from their work. The elegance of their color was attractive to me. I made many copies of them and tried to learn their technique.

Mohsen Vaziri-Moghaddam with all the ups and downs he faces during his student period. Finally, in 1327, he submitted his diploma project and graduated with excellent marks. The subject of his practical work is “Meeting of Sheikh Sanan and Tersa’s daughter”. “After a few days of intensive work, I finally finished the practical project and submitted it. I couldn’t stop because of hunger and fatigue, I went to the dormitory, there was nothing to eat. I was hoping for a close friend who was studying dentistry, but he was not in his room either. I lay on the bed and waited for him to come. Every time the dormitory service delivered the children, I waited for him to knock on the door of my room, after all, this was his usual habit. But it was night and he did not come. The next day passed in the same way, until it was almost night when he knocked on my room door. When he noticed my hunger, he picked me up and took me to his room. Ironically, he had neither money nor anything to eat. But he immediately prepared two loaves of bread for me. In order for me to eat them, he had some lemon juice that he poured into a bowl, added some sugar to it, and in this way I filled my stomach.”

After the end of the course and delivery of the dormitory, although he spends some time in confusion due to unemployment and lack of income, but the situation gradually improves. He does various things to earn money: he is engaged in book illustration for a while, (illustration for children’s stories by Sobhi Mohtadi), which earned him little income. Therefore, he goes to the “Ministry of Culture and Art” (former) and to “Pahbod”, who was the minister at that time, to find a place to be employed in that ministry. In this way, he works for six months as the secretary of the visual art school for girls and boys, which he also leaves unfinished. After that, he turns to advertising work.

This gradually earns him more money. In the same way, for three or four years, he has been working on graphic design in the cultural affairs department of “Truman’s Original Four Organization”. (This organization was recently established in Iran to implement the United States of America’s initial technical assistance program to underdeveloped countries.) He himself says about this: “One of my friends introduced this organization to me. “I passed the entrance exam and for the posters I designed, I was paid 800 tomans a month, which was good money and I could save for a trip to Europe.” Almost after graduation, he had the desire to go abroad to continue his education. But it was not financially possible to do this. After being hired by “Truman’s Original Four Organization”, while he manages to save money for this purpose, he also learns English to some extent. Finally, in August 1334, he went to Italy to continue his studies.

Between 1327 and 1334, he continued painting. Most of the subjects he painted were landscapes and portraits in impressionist, post-impressionist and cubist ways. He first exhibited a collection of these works in 1331 in the “Cultural Association of Iran and America”. “In 1333, due to the efforts of Parviz Natal Khanleri and with the support of Sokhn magazine, Waziri’s works were exhibited in the “Cultural Association of Iran and Germany”.

The first years of his presence in Italy coincided with the rise of a new movement in the field of abstract art, which is known by titles synonymous with “Tachism”, “formless art” and “other art”. Waziri enrolls in the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in the early fall of the same year. Regardless of his previous records in Iran, he starts from the first grade. His teacher is Franco Gentilini F. Gentilini who was a nature painter. The training procedure was almost like Iran, but in a freer way. “During the first year, I was busy drawing and painting the human body during the day at the college, and in the evenings I went to free drawing class.

Soon I found a class in which they taught the method of painting on the wall in the Renaissance way for free. Besides these, I had to learn Italian. My life was all about work. I was working all the time.” Soon, the money he took with him from Iran will run out, but with the help of his professor, he will receive a six-month scholarship from the Middle East Institute for the second semester. In the second year, he was introduced to the Ministry of Culture and Arts of Iran as a distinguished student by the Faculty of Fine Arts in Rome, and was officially awarded a scholarship by the Italian government, which earned him good money and allowed him to pursue his experiences with more ease. From the second year, he makes changes in his work method. In this way, he drew his new paintings by using the image traditions of Iran during the Sassanid, Timurian and Qajar periods. In these new experiences, he is partly influenced by “Matisse”, and he is greatly encouraged by his teacher Gentilini, and with his support, he holds a solo exhibition in one of the galleries in Rome. (1335) After this experience, he simplified and geometricized the ancient motifs, paying attention to the works of “Paul Kelly”, which was again applauded. Vaziri Moghadam participated in the 29th Venice Biennale in 1337 with a work called “Iranian City” and many exhibitions of his works were held in European and Iranian cities. In the same year, he meets an Italian girl, which leads to their marriage after some time. “She was a very knowledgeable and cultured girl, and her comments about my work mattered to me. It was he who introduced me to Professor T. Shaloia, who was a professor of art research at the Academy of Rome. By inviting him to my workshop, I asked his opinion about my works. He said: These are good for becoming a painter, but not for becoming an artist. I said: What is the difference between the two?

He said: The artist creates something that does not exist. I asked: What should I do to become an artist? He said: First, you should draw a red line on everything you have learned so far and start from zero. He made points about working methods that I later realized were similar to Paul Kelly’s views on painting. At first I doubted what he said. I said that maybe he didn’t like my work and said these things. I had a fever for a week. What have I been doing all these years?

How to put aside the result of fifteen years of continuous work at once. My friend comforted me a lot. In the end, I decided to go to this teacher’s class in the evenings in addition to the college classes. He very accurately and well explained the history of painting from the past to the contemporary era and over time introduced us to different techniques. In each session, he asked us to practice without using the elements of nature. With textures, colors, lines, movements, with their inner energy and with our own mentality, with the memories we had from the past and from nature and our daily experiences. And that required a tremendous amount of work. From now on, I gave up any pictorial practice and worked in an abstract style. Along with these experiences, I visited museums and works of contemporary painters. I read many books on this subject. My Italian was gradually improving. “Through the searches I was doing, and the explanations and comments my teacher gave on the works, I discovered and understood new points.”

“You know that art is not to be taught. Rather, it is a kind of discovery and understanding. Everything is in nature. However, it should be possible to pull them out of it.”

In 1337, Waziri gradually began to paint a single-color abstract painting using the rhythm of lines and fast hand movements, which was reminiscent of cosmic space. With one of these works, he participated in the international painting competition of Ravenna city and won an honorary diploma and an award from the Prime Minister of Italy.

He finished his studies at Rome Academy in 1338. His thesis is about Mondrian and his influence in the art of the 20th century and how his work method is from naturalism to abstraction. During this time, his stock market was cut off, but during this time, he managed to buy a car and with it, he made many trips to different cities in Italy, Germany, Holland and visited their museums. “This year, a new thing happened in my work. Together with some of my friends, we went for fun and swimming to Albano Lake, whose shore is covered with black sand. I blackened my body using this sand to make my friends laugh. Once I noticed something. I noticed the grooves that I had drawn on the sand and on my body by my fingers. The color contrast of the black sand lines and the light skin of the body awakened new ideas in me. Movement, rhythm and space could be found in them.

Right there on the sand by the sea, I started drawing lines with my fingers. These lines reminded me of my childhood games. Again, my mind went to distant times. To the relationship that man has always had with the soil and to the essence of man that was from the soil. I filled a bag of those sands and took them home. I spilled them on the floor and started playing on them by moving my fingers. The repetition of lines, rhythm, texture, space and contrast that appeared with the light background was very fascinating to me. On the other hand, working with fingers and sand was also a kind of escape from common materials in painting. But the problem was the possibility of fixing the sand on the canvas. I tried for a long time until I finally found the work style, so I did a lot of work with this method. I invited Professor Toti Shaloya to see my work. After seeing the works, he told me: You have done something that no one has done before and this puts you in the position of an artist. He sent me to Professor Giulio Carlo Argan G.C. Argan, who was an eminent artist. He also approved my works and suggested me to put up an exhibition of them and he would also write a review about them. In this regard, I met a Japanese professor (Nabuyo. AB NABUABEH).

From 1348 to 1355, he was also the head of the faculty of fine arts and made wooden sculptures using metal reliefs. Parviz Kalantari writes a defense for him, something similar to what the famous Italian writer Alberto Moravia wrote about him, or the French critic Pierre Restani, who cleared the dust of his memories with the breath of a former minister. He said: “Mohsen Waziri Moghadam is sensitive. A sensitivity that comes from the heart, from the depths of his emotions, his existential suffering hardly calms down in some short moments, because of his love for his native land, love for the simplicity of man in dealing with the truth of nature. Like the moments we spent together on Wednesday.” (Tehran- 1977) Jamaluddin Akrami writes about him as follows: “The proud shadows of Iran’s contemporary art history walk hand in hand with Vaziri Moghadam in the alleys of Rome and Tehran under the trees of colors, fantasy and patterns of pleasant motifs, and we, with a magnifying glass of contempt and narrow eyes, follow the painters commissioned from this gallery to that foreign and domestic museum, because it has been a long time since we forgot to love our own people, whose hands are full of humility and blessing, and we review the history of irrevocable moments away from the art of thought with all the weight. slow It’s as if we haven’t seen all those prestigious awards, the setting up of brilliant exhibitions in Iran, Italy, Germany, America and France, and we haven’t heard of his paintings with the works of Hans Arp, Pierre Soulage and Eduardo Chileda. And it seems that his art carried both archetypal and modern elements with him here and there, and reality, abstraction and modernism have achieved a strange peace in his paintings. Vazir Moghadam will once again travel by us with the dust of oblivion, and we. will continue to travel/ the night/ and the day/ still.

The books “Shiweh Design”, “Drawing Guide”, and “Design” are among the works of this artist.