Behjat Sadr
Behjat Sadr (1924, Arak, Iran – 2009, Corsica, France) became an abstract painter in the second half of the 20th century. She is among the first female artists and university lecturers (1960s and early 70s) in Iran. She participated in artistic events in the 1960s and was an active presence in the international visual art scene. Her works are part of many museum collections, like Tate London, Minneapolis, and Pompidou in Paris. Having studied in Italy, she became interested in abstraction and created her first series of works (1961-1966) characterized by circular forms made of the coming together of colorful bands. She remembers the moment when a long rope fell to the ground from her hand, twisted, and created such an attractive composition on the marble surface. She decided then and there to paint the twists and turns of the rope. In her early paintings, there is a central core around which colorful stripes form. The act of painting for Behjat Sadr is akin to "remembering". The artist remembers being driven in the dark, tree-lined roads of her childhood. Repetitious line and the sense of symmetry in her canvases can be attributed to this childhood memory. Black dominates a major part of her work. She uses blotches to create dynamic patterns. By placing paint directly on the surface of the work and removing paint with a knife countless times, she arrives at the familiar visual structure of her paintings. Sadr was also a photographer and known for her collages.
