Currently on view at Haines Gallery, San Francisco  is “The First Family” a solo exhibition by Iranian artist Monir Farmanfarmaian. The exhibition coincides with her current inclusion in the Iran Modern show at the Asia Society in New York, a major exhibition focusing on Iran’s dynamic modern art scene curated by Melissa Chiu. Currently living and working in Tehran, Farmanfarmaian articulates her singular vision through reversepainted glass and mirror objects that recall both Qajar-era Persian interior decoration and high modernist abstraction of the 20th century. Having lived in New York during the 1940s and 50s as an art student at Cornell University and the Parsons School of Design, and later as a fashion illustrator for the department store Bonwit Teller alongside Andy Warhol, she absorbed the art of the new, Abstract Expressionism. This novel perspective – when layered upon her existing awareness of the arts and crafts of her native Iran and the refined historical decoration of its ancient cities – produces a singular aesthetic fusion of Persian pictorial language and pristine geometry. Her work at once references the spiritual geometry of Islamic architecture, most notable the tenants of Sufism, but with a distinctly post-modern edge.

“The First Family” is on view through December 21st, 2013.

For more information visit Haines Gallery, San Francisco.