Honaronline Visual Service: The Book “Women Painters of Iran” is being compiled by “Baat” Cultural – Artistic Institute. TARA NAZMALI ZADEH, the Artist Painter and Director of the Artistic Section of the “Women Painters of Iran” book project, stated about this project in an interview with Honaronline:

“The planning for publication of this book began in October 2019; and we were supposed to introduce this project to the artists by holding several meetings. However, the outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic made us change the plan.

 NAZMALI ZADEH continued:

The book “Women Painters of Iran” consists of two volumes and 4 parts. The first volume of this book is a research source and a reference book, the first chapter of which is titled “History and Descent of the Iranian Painting Art” and is dedicated to an extended description of the history of painting art in Iran and is considered as a documented history of the Iranian painting. The second chapter of the book is called “The Distinguished Women of the Contemporary Iranian Painting” and in this chapter, the reader becomes acquainted with the lasting figures and prominent and international painters of Iran. The third chapter is “An Introduction to Contemporary One Hundred Top and Professional Female Painters of Iran” which introduces 100 Iranian female painters in the contemporary era.

Stating that those 100 artists are selected by a group of judges, she added: The figures introduced in this chapter are selected based on the criteria, such as the artistic features of the works, activities, artistic achievements and professional records, by Saghar Pezeshkian, Mahshid Rahim Tabrizi, Ketayoun Moghaddam and I. For this purpose, we prepared a list of active women artists across the country and considered people who have a modern and contemporary approach. Some of these painters are prominent in the art community and some others may not be well known despite their good works. Two pages of the book will be allocated to the artists who are invited to appear in this section, in which five works will be published along with the artist’s photo and biography.

NAZMALI ZADEH added: “The second volume of this magnificent work is dedicated to the brief biographies of the contemporary professional women painters in Iran, and is a database that we have never had before in the Iranian painting art. For the fourth chapter of the book, during several months of research, we prepared lists of female painters from all over the country and invited them to participate in this project. To prepare this section, the received works were examined by the judges; and 1200 artists were selected to be introduced in the book. The conditions for selecting artists in this section provided a great opportunity for professional women painters to be present in an international painting occasion.

NAZMALI ZADEH stated: “This book will be published in Canada next year”, and added that the implementation of that international project at that level would cost a lot: “The cost of this project is financed by four Iranian and Canadian publishers. A small part of the cost is paid by the artists, themselves. The only fee charged to artists participating in this project is the purchase price of one volume of this book, and in fact, each artist must pre-purchase one volume of the book for 70 Euros.”

Pointing out that the book will be published entirely in English, she said: “The reason the book is in English is that our goal is to introduce Iranian artists abroad, because our artists enjoy great potential, but they have not been introduced and are not recognized in foreign countries. Our objective of publishing these books is to direct the Iranian art towards internationalization.”

The artist continued: “None of the phases of book formation is done in Iran; and only the works of gathering information and content are performed in Iran. The translation of the texts and all stages of printing and design of the book are done in Canada. And, thereafter, we plan to inaugurate the book in one of the four credible international book festivals in the world.”

NAZMALI ZADEH added: The activity of “Baat” Cultural –Artistic Institute is not limited to the publication of this book. Rather, its greatest objective is to introduce Iranian artists and to hold exhibitions of their works abroad. This is a shortage of resources that our artists are facing, as a result of which it is impossible for them to sell their works abroad. The works of art that are sold abroad are often owned by well-known masters. But the contemporary art pays little attention to the Iranian artists. Therefore, what is very important for us is to organize various occasions to introduce and to sell the works of Iranian artists abroad

Source: Honar Oline