Leyly Matine-Daftary

Private Collection, Monaco (commissioned directly from the artist circa 1970)
Thence by descent 

This work is in good condition. Some horizontal craquelure is noticeable throughout the surface of the canvas, due to the canvas being previously rolled. These can be easily treated. Upon closer inspection, some faint water stains on the lower right corner edge, centre right and lower left section of the work. A 3cm surface abrasion on the upper right corner and a minor surface imperfections on the bottom left corner. All the above inherent to the artist working process. Colours: The colours in the catalogue illustration are accurate.
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Certain artists are inextricably identified with their art. Leyly Matin Daftary was one such artist - a gentle, warmly graceful personality so strongly infused in her practice that it is impossible to look at her canvases without remembering one of the most beloved and admired artists of that generation. Born in 1937, Leyly was raised in a highly political and cultured family – her father Ahmad Matine-Daftary was a driving force of modernization of the Iranian economy, and her maternal grandfather, the formidable Dr Mohammed Mossadeq nationalized Iranian oil. She herself however veered towards the creative and the artistic, having graduated from London’s Slade School of Art and returning to Iran to teach sculpture at the Fine Arts Faculty of Tehran University.  She increasingly took a hand in the development of the 1970s art scene, and was part of the artist-circle that shaped the visual canon of the Shiraz Arts Festivals, as well as participating in the Tehran Biennales.

Leyly’s unique and highly personal style is above all intimate and unusually distant from any Islamic roots.  She celebrated her culture in a universal language – especially naïve-style depictions of what she cherished most – the bark of plane trees which typify Tehran’s broad, tree-lined avenues, the folkloric Norouz haft-seen spread and its sprouted greens or happy goldfish, portraits of friends and family, a quiet still-life…Perhaps the first Iranian artist to remark on the unremarkable and highlight the glory of simplicity, she revolutionized ways of seeing and painting that made her stand out against a backdrop of contemporaries who were above all preoccupied with questions of identity. Expressing herself in compositions that are both unique and universal, her works have the widest appeal and are held in collections around the world.

Portrait of Farideh Gouhari  is executed in the artist’s typically simple, flat-painted style yet is oddly expressive and charismatic, encapsulating both a specific personality and the generic 'woman'.