Farideh Lashai was an Iranian painter. She was born in Rasht, Iran, 1944. Lashai was also a writer and translator. Her foremost book is Shal Bamu (The Jackal Came) published 2003, narrating the lives of three generations of women amidst the socio-political background of the Iranian society. She is also well known for her translations of German playwright Bertolt Brecht's works to Persian.
After finishing high school in Iran, she went to Germany to study literature at the university of Frankfurt. Later she went to Vienne to study at the Academy of Fine Arts where she received her B.A. After graduation she started to work at Riedel Studios in Southern Austria as a crystal designer. And later on she worked as a porcelain designer at the Studio Rosenthal in Selb, Germany.
Lashai had been painting for more than four decades and is renowned for her abstract contemporary paintings, which are a combination of traditional and contemporary views of nature. Lashai's works are a reflection inner insight and a perception of the nature's soul. She never intended to paint the details, but instead created a symbol and vague understanding of nature, so that they bear the feeling of nature in them.
Untitled, Mixed Media on Canvas
Lashai held more than 24 solo exhibitions in Iran, Middle East, Europe and the USA. Her work has been widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, including "Between the act, And the motion & Falls the Shadow", at Saatchi Gallery, London, 2012 and Islamic Art Now, LACMA, Los Angeles, 2015. Lashai took part in international biennales and collective exhibitions as well. Posthumous solo exhibitions of her works include Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, 2015, the Iranian Pavilion - La Biennale di Venezia 2015 and Only a Shadow, Davis Museum, Boston, 2013.
Lashai's works can be found in major private and public collections such as the collections of Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Centre George Pompidou in Paris, Demenga Public Collection in Basel, Deutsche Bank, Commerz Bank in Germany, Los Angeles County Museum (LACMA), The British Museum in London, National Museum of Fine Arts, La Valetta, Sharjah Art Foundation, Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), Farjam Collection, Dubai and Devi Art Foundation in New Delhi.
Le Temps Perdu Painting with projected photographic images and sound, oil and graphite on canvas
She was one of the founding and active members of Neda Group, founded in the 1990s, an artist collective consisting of 12 Iranian female painters.
In the last years of her life, Lashai was also active in the field of video art and multimedia installations; and her presence in major international art auctions together with her brilliant valuable works and her successes on a global scale had turned her into one of the most well-known pioneers of visual arts not only in the Persian Gulf region and the Middle East, but also in Europe and America.
Farideh Lashai At the age of 68, after a long period of dealing with cancer, she died in Jam hospital in Tehran on 24th February 2013.
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