MANIJEH YADEGAR ELEMENTAL | PART 1
ZULEIKA GALLERY 1st September - 28th September 2018 DD47 Fondamenta alle Zattere 47 Dorsoduro Venice, Italy
Cover Image:
C14-2013 acrylic on canvas, 37.1 41.7 cm.
Opposite:
C13-2013, acrylic on canvas 15.1 x 15.1 cm (detail)
For Manijeh (1951-2016) Manijeh Yadegar’s untimely death robbed us of a artist of exquisite sensibility whose quietly authoritative paintings were just beginning to find a wider audience. Her husband, the sculptor Nigel Hall, has taken it upon himself to initiate a programme of exhibitions and publications which will help to make her work more familiar to a national and international audience. I feel privileged to be involved, however marginally, in this process, for I am a long-standing admirer of Manijeh’s remarkable gifts, and wish to share my enthusiasm for her paintings. These are the first thoughts in a developing appreciation. Manijeh had a grand independence of spirit, and a breadth of vision paradoxically operating within carefully determined constraints. The skin or derma of her paintings is subtly modulated, as if worn and abraded by the passage of time, partly cloaking and partly revealing, revelling in contrasts (hard and soft, hazy and defined, light and dark), the focus shifting from precision to blur in minute increments. Her colours are immensely evocative: meditative but also sensual, of the empyrean yet also earthy. Indian red, violet, ochre, blue-black: colour is suspended in the strong oceanic rhythms of surface incidents. These paintings and drawings transmit light, gathering it within themselves and projecting it back to the viewer. Manijeh usually began her paintings by laying down on the canvas an impasto ground of a solid, earth colour, and then working over it with veils of liquid oil or acrylic paint of different densities. The paintings derived their potency from the interaction of these varying layers and textures, from the skilled interweaving of light, colour and space into a serene yet vibrant harmony.Â
Her drawings are really paintings on paper, carried out again in oil or acrylic on previously prepared paper, specially textured to work with and against the application of the paint. The brush or comb marks on the paper offer a kind of sub-structure to respond to, lightly ridged and rippled. That formal dialogue of applications is the subject of these delicate but rigorous studies. The directional movement of the paint marks across the paper or canvas also deliberately echoes the journey of the artist’s body backwards and forwards across the surface as she worked. Although these paintings have points of reference in the observed world, their surface textures recalling the bark of trees, the ribbing of sand in deserts, cliffs of cloud, eroded stone frontals, animal hide, purling water and the grain of leaves, they are also studies of nuance of form stretched from near to far, of movement and composure, of layering and intensity. However, Manijeh’s single-minded exploration of formal concerns was not a conceptual cul-de-sac but a fruitful dialogue with the world we inhabit; both abstract and organic. Even though a painting may resemble light biscuity mud drying on the dark hull of a sailing ship, it is a precise artistic construct, held in stasis by the will and formal control of the painter who created it. Manijeh’s paintings are meditative and generate spiritual energy. They are inner landscapes, maps of the spirit, statements of simplicity, directness and profundity.
She wrote of her paintings: ‘They develop observations of the natural world into completely abstract images; memories of places, moments in time, the transition between night and day, dawn to dusk. The contrast of mist against mountain, or the traces and stains of detritus in the urban landscape, all inform the visual language. To this list could be added the influence of music, particularly jazz. The works are made in such a way as to slow down the moment at which they are sensed visually and physically.’ Manijeh contended that the act of making a painting and the act of looking at it were not only intimately related but closer in spirit than often appears - if each were carried out with an attentive mind, an open heart and full concentration. She required us to absorb the experience of her paintings rather than simply to look at them. Many people see but do not observe; Manijeh asked us to go one stage further, and share the experience of her paintings. (Remember the old Chinese saying: ‘It is better to feel a painting than to look at it.’) Robert Hughes called for slow, thoughtful, skilled art in this age of instant gratification and net-surfing. Equilibrium and repose are in short supply in the world’s jangle. Manijeh Yadegar made beautiful paintings which demand slow and thoughtful attention, close study and careful consideration. She worked with integrity and conviction, trying to focus her art at ‘the still point of the turning world’. She wanted us to take time looking at her work which, in turn, had taken time to make. And she wanted us to be aware of time passing, to experience time through her paintings. Let us now give her time. Andrew Lambirth August 2018
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C8-2000 oil on canvas 17.8 x 20.2 cm (7 1/8 x 8 in) £1250+VAT €1400+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C15--08 oil on canvas 136.7 x 41.7 cm (14 1/2 x 16 3/8 in) £2750+VAT €3080+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C7-2012 acrylic on canvas 20 x 20 cm (7 7/8 x 7 7/8 in) £1400+VAT €1600+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C13-2013 acrylic on canvas 15.1 x 15.1 cm (6 x 6 in) £1000+VAT €1150+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C2-2012 oil on canvas 20 .1 x 20.1 cm (7 7/8 x 7 7/8 in) £1400 ex VAT €1600+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C5-02 oil on canvas 20 x 20.2 cm (7 7/8 x 8 in) £1450+VAT €1630+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C8-03 (SMOKE) oil on canvas 20.2 x 20.1 cm (8 x 8 in) 1450+VAT €1630+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) U27 - c.2004 oil on canvas 20.2 x 20.1 cm (8 x 7 7/8 in) £1450+VAT €1630+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C9-2013 acrylic on canvas 29.5 x 24 cm (11 5/8 x 9 1/2 in) £1950+VAT €2180+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C12-02 oil on canvas 29.2 x 24.1 cm (11 1/2 x 9 1/2 in) £1950+VAT €2180+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C10-07 oil on canvas 29.3 x 24 cm (11 1/2 x 9 1/2 in) £2200+VAT €2470+VAT
Opposite Page Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C17-2013 acrylic on canvas 17.2 x 20.3 cm (6 3/4 x 8 in) £1750+VAT €1960+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) W9-2014 acrylic on board 29.9 x 33.7 cm (11 3/4 x 13 1/4 in) £1950+VAT €2200+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) W14-2014 acrylic on board 25.2 x 30.6 cm (9 7/8 x 12 1/8 in) £1850+VAT €2080+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) DIFFUSED CARMINE (W13-2014) acrylic on board 30.5 x 36.3 cm (12 1/8 x 14 1/4 in) £2100+VAT €2250+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C1-2013 oil on canvas 18 x 20 cm (7 1/8 x 7 7/8 in) £1200+VAT €1350+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C11-00 oil on canvas 20.2 x 20 cm (8 x 7 7/8 in) £1375+VAT €1540+VAT Opposite Page: Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C3-00 oil on canvas 17.6 x 20 cm (6 7/8 x 7 7/8 in) £1200+VAT €1350+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C11-99 (Millenium) oil on canvas 17.8 x 20.3 cm (7 1/8 x 8 in) £1250+VAT €1400+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C11-01 oil on canvas 29.2 x 24 cm (11 1/2 x 9 1/2 cm) £1850+VAT €2080+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C12-02 oil on canvas 29.2 x 24.1 cm (11 1/2 x 9 1/2 cm) £1950+VAT €2200+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C22-00 oil on canvas 20.2 x 20 cm (8 x 7 7/8 in) £1450+VAT €1630+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C1-2015 acrylic on canvas 20.2 x 20.2 cm (8 x 8 in) £1400+VAT €1570+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) U54 - c.2012 10.2 x 15.2 cm (4 1/8 x 6 in) acrylic on canvas £800+VAT €900+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) U32 - c2012 acrylic on canvas 10.2 x 15.2 cm (4 1/8 x 6 in) acrylic on canvas £800+VAT €900+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C5-2004 oil on canvas 20.2 x 20.2 cm (8 x 8 in) £1500+VAT €1680+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C2-05 oil on canvas 18 x 20.3 cm (7 1/8 x 8 in) £1425+VAT €1600+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C5-2004
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C3-09 oil on canvas 15.2 x 10.3 cm (6 x 4 1/8 in) £800+VAT €900+VAT
Opposite Page Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C6-2013 acrylic on canvas 15 x 20 cm (6 1/8 x 7 7/8 cm)) £800+VAT €900+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C10-02 oil on canvas 20.2 x 20.4 cm (8 x 8 1.4 in) £1550+VAT €1740+VAT
Manijeh Yadegar (1951-2016) C14-2013 acrylic on canvas 37.1 x 41.7 cm (14 5/8 x 16 3/8 in) £2750+VAT €3080+VAT
MANIJEH YADEGAR CV 1975 1976-77 1977-80
Diploma in Interior Design, University of North London, England Chelsea School of Art Camberwell School of Art
1951 1964
Born in Esfahan, Iran Lived and worked in London, England until 2016
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2008 2004 2002 1999
Gallery Artlink, Seoul, South Korea Galleri C Hijäne, Helsingborg, Sweden Galleri C Hijäne, Helsinborg, Sweden The Eagle Gallery, London ,England
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2016 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010
Royal Academy of Arts, Summer Exhibition, London, England Nigel Hall and Manijeh Yadegar, Galerie Andrew Thalman, Zurich, Switzerland Small is Beautiful XXX1, Flowers Gallery, London, England Small is Beautiful XXX, Flowers Gallery, London, England NSA Collection, NSA Gallery, Hiroshima, Japan Eighties, Nineties, and Noughties; Contemporary Works from the Art Gallery Collectino, Rochdale Gallery, Rochdale, England
2008 2007
2006
2005 2004 2003 2002
2001
2000 1999 1998 1995 1993 1988 1986-88 1984 1983 1981
Take Two, NSA Gallery, Hiroshima, Japan Annely Juda - A Celebration, Annely Juda Fine Art, London England 1907-2007 Hundert Jahre, Kunsthalle, Mannheim, Mannehim, Germany Venice City of Dreams, Sothebys, London, England Surface Tensions, Jaggedart, London, England Small is Beautiful XXIV, Flowers Central, London, England Small Format, Galerie Scheffel, Bad Homburg, Germany Tom Benhem Collector, Lang Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, England Will and Compulsion, Boradbent, London, England Paintings and Works on Paper, Eagle Gallery, London, England 20 x 5 Drawings, Eagle Gallery, London, England Painting and Works on Paper, Eagle Gallery, London, England Beneath the Surface II, Sarah Myerscough Fine Art, London, England Geometrisk Abstraction XXI, Konstrucktiv Tendens, Stockholm, Sweden Retrospective II, Eagle Gallery, London, England British Abstract Painting 2001, Flowers east, London, England Geometrisk Abstraktion XX, Konstrucktiv Tendens, Stockholk, Sweden Gallery Artists, Eagle Gallery, London, England White Out, Gallery Fine, London Matter, Todd Gallery, London, England Contemporary Art Society, London, UK Partners, Annely Juda Fine Art, London, England Works in Progress, Michiko Fine Art, Hiroshima, Japan Contemporary Art Society, London, UK Group Exhibition, Michiko Fine Art, Hiroshima, Japan 15 Contemporary Artists, Studio Odd, Hirsoshima, Japan Spirit of London, Royal Festival Hall, London, England
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