Behjat Sadr
“The embodiment of a century” One Hundred Years of Visual Arts of Iran
(Part Seven)
Image Sources:
“Pioneers of Iran’s Modern Art, Behjat Sadr,” 2004
Writer and Director: Amir Soghrati
Research Assistant: Najwa Erfani
Motion Graphics: Masoud Talebani
Text Narrator: Amir Soghrati
Logo Design: Mohammad Fadaei
Editing: Mojtaba Fallahi
Project Manager: Harf-e Honar Studio
Producer: Institute for the Development of Contemporary Visual Arts
Supported by the General Directorate of Visual Arts, Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Islamic Republic of Iran
Behjat Sadr was a pioneering artist in modern art and one of the first Iranian women to complete higher education in painting, both in Iran and Italy.
She was born on May 29, 1924, in Arak, a city that has produced significant artists such as Abolghasem Saidi, Sonia Balassanian, and Hadi Hazavei. In 1941, encouraged by her mother, Sadr enrolled at the Tehran Teachers’ Training College, the same institution where the unveiling decree was implemented six years prior. That same year, Iran was occupied by Allied forces during World War II, leading to Reza Shah’s abdication. The anxiety and turmoil of those years can be seen in some of Sadr’s later works, characterized by violence, power, and boldness. Her use of thick oil paints on coarse fabrics or dry-textured woods further emphasized this raw intensity. These abstract yet expressive, powerful, and dynamic paintings, despite their visual chaos, reflect the artist’s deep silence. Instead of being created on easels, her paintings were often done on the ground.
In 1947, she began studying painting under Ali Asghar Petgar. The following year, she was admitted to the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran, where she studied painting and graduated top of her class in 1954.
Like her contemporaries Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam (1924, Tehran), Marcos Grigorian (1925, Kropotkin), Mansoureh Hosseini (1926, Tehran), Bahman Mohassess (1930, Rasht), Maryan Shaghayegh (1936), and Parviz Tanavoli (1937, Tehran), Behjat Sadr pursued further studies in Italy. In 1956, she joined the Roberto Melli Academy, which catered to international scholarship students. She soon left to attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples. That same year, one of her works was displayed at the 28th Venice Biennale. At that time, Iran had not yet officially participated in the Venice Biennale, and it was not until the 29th Biennale in 1958 that Iran formally introduced its representatives to this global event. Sadr’s work was exhibited again in Venice six years later (1962), this time as one of Iran’s representatives after winning at the third Tehran Painting and Sculpture Biennial, leading her to the 31st Venice Biennale.
Her abstract paintings were showcased at this international event alongside works by Sohrab Sepehri, Mohsen Vaziri Moghaddam, and Kamran Diba, all of whom also presented abstract pieces. Two years later, in 1964, she designed and executed two ceramic reliefs for the Hilton Hotel facade. The Hilton, established in 1962, hosted the second auction of contemporary Iranian painters’ works in 1968, organized by Masoumeh Sepehri. From 1957, Behjat Sadr began receiving acclaim from international critics.
She became one of the most celebrated Iranian artists on the global stage, with her works featured and sold in auctions by Christie’s, Bonhams, and Sotheby’s. Sadr, who had begun teaching art in 1943, retired from the University of Tehran in 1980. That same year, she moved to Paris and, with the onset of the Iran-Iraq war, stayed in France permanently, passing away on August 10, 2009, on the island of Corsica in southern France.
Throughout her career, her works were displayed in significant exhibitions both domestically and internationally. Sadr believed life was a collage of memories, and in her later paintings, she incorporated collage techniques with photos and paintings. She was an artist of grand designs, powerful sketches, expressive surfaces, and rough hatching—symbolizing the perpetual presence of pain and darkness in life. Yet, the movement, flow, and brilliance of colors in her paintings represented the beauty of life that emerges amidst human suffering.
