JAZEH TABATABAI (1931-2008) Female figure with flowers

signed in Farsi and English ‘JAZEH TABATABAI’ (lower right) watercolour, ink and gold paint on paper 49 x 35 cm Born in 1931 in Tehran, Jazeh Tabatabai (Ali Tabatabai) was an Iranian avant-garde painter, sculptor, poet, and writer. He started writing when he was twelve. He wrote folklore stories, novels, poems, art critic and plays. He graduated from the ballet academy in 1950. Ten years later, at the age of twenty-nine, he completed his painting course at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran. The following year he established the Iran’s Modern Art Gallery, the first art gallery in Iran. Jazz Tabatabai’s works are held in many museums and art collections around the world, including the Louvre and Metropolitan Museum of Art, and have been part of the Biennials of Paris, Sao Paulo, Venice.