Monir Shahroudi Farmanfarmayian is a modern artist who has created contemporary art works by using the "Āina-kāri" and "Under Glass Painting" technique. She dropped out of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Tehran and went to New York to continue her education. She studied at Cornell University, the Parsons School of Design, and the student community from 1945 to 1953. After returning to Iran, she exhibited her works in the first Tehran Biennial in 1958 and won an award. In 1962, she held her first solo exhibition at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Tehran. Since then, she has showcased her paintings and Āina-kāri works many times in Iran and other countries. In 2014, an exhibition of her works was held at the Guggenheim Museum and the permanent museum of Monir Farmanfarmayian was established in 2017 at the Negarestan Museum. Her early works mainly dealt with the subject of flowers, and from the late 1940s she created geometric designs using mirrors and plaster, based on the mathematical principles of traditional Āina-kāri designs. In the 1991s, she created a collection of wooden boxes in which she mounted her nostalgic photographs, objects and designs. "Monir's relationship with architecture is very interesting to me," says Frank Stella, a famous American painter and sculptor. The true manifestation of Islamic geometry depends on its use in architectural levels, but Monir has separated it from the wall and basically turned it into its own level. "She has turned geometry, which is essentially dependent on architecture, into an independent level."
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Solo Exhibitions
1959 – Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, Tehran
1966 – Italian Cultural Institute, Tehran
1968 – Italian Cultural Institute, Tehran
1973 – Iran–America Society, Tehran
1975 – Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.
1976 – Iran–America Society, Tehran
1977 – Galerie Denise René, Paris
2006 – Niavaran Cultural Center, Tehran
2014 – Infinite Possibility: Mirror Works and Paintings, Serralves Museum, Porto
2015 – Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
2019 – Sunset, Sunrise, The Third Line, Dubai
2020 – Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian: Mirrors and Drawings (2003–2015), James Cohan, New York
2022 – Language of Symbols, James Cohan, New York
2022 – Garden of Mirrors, High Museum of Art, Atlanta
Group Exhibitions
1956 – Congress Palace, Monte Carlo, Monaco
1982 – The Heritage of Islam, New York
1985 – Traveling Group Exhibition, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery
1986 – Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
2018 – From Where to Where, Sales Gallery, Tehran
2019 – Patternitecture, Niavaran Cultural Center, Tehran
2019 – Masterpieces of Iranian Art with Reproductions by Fouad Sharifi, Haan Gallery, Shiraz
2020 – A Boundless Drop in a Boundless Ocean, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando
2021 – Contemporary Iranians, Asia Society, New York
2021 – Modernisms, NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery
2021 – Life-Changing, Boston University Art Galleries, Boston
2022 – Reimagining the Hirshhorn Collection, Washington, D.C.
2022 – Reimagining the Hirshhorn Collection, Manchester
2024 – Eye to Eye, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
2024 – With Graceful Precision, Eykyn Contemporary, New York
2025 – Fragments of Iranian Modernity, Foundry, Dubai
2025 – In Search of My Blue Sky, Lisson Gallery, London
2025 – In the Name of Women, Sohrab Gallery, Tehran
Biennials and Triennials
1958 – Venice Biennale
1958 – First Tehran Biennial
1964 – Venice Biennale
1966 – Venice Biennale
2009 – Venice Biennale
2009 – Sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art
2010 – Twenty-Ninth São Paulo Biennial
Art Fairs
2018 – Art Dubai
2018 – Art Basel Miami Beach
2018 – Art021 Shanghai
2018 – Abu Dhabi Art
2019 – Frieze New York
2019 – DRA Art Fair London
2019 – FOG Design+Art, San Francisco
2020 – Art Basel, Basel
2020 – Frieze London
2020 – FIAC, Paris
2021 – Art Dubai
2021 – Frieze Los Angeles
2025 – Abu Dhabi Art
Awards and Honors
1958 – Gold Medal, Venice Biennale, Iran Pavilion
1958 – Gold Medal, First Tehran Biennial
1964 – Gold Medal, Venice Biennale
1966 – Gold Medal, Venice Biennale
1967 – Monaco Festival Award