Lot 524: Apparizione (The Apparition)

Apparizione (The Apparition) oil on canvas, framed signed "B Mohassess 63" in English (bottom left), executed in 1963 100 x 70cm (39 3/8 x 27 9/16in).

1963100x 70cm

: Property from the collection of Dr Ehsan Yarshater Acquired directly from the artist by the above circa early 1970's

The present work is being sold in benefit of Encyclopædia Iranica. "I believe in deeply ordered chaos" Bacon, Francis. Often cast as the "outsider" of Iranian modernism, Bahman Mohasses' characterization as a recluse and a misfit is in marked contrast to the buoyancy, expressionism, and drollness of his artistic output. An artist of immense stylistic diversity Mohasses oscillated from concocting exotic and outlandish pseudo-anthropic forms, to stern anatomically imposing hybrid creatures inspired by classical mythology, and, as the present work demonstrates, ethereal finely tuned abstract compositions. An artist that can truly be classified as an itinerant, Mohasses' never felt a sense of attachment to any fixed abode, leaving Iran in the early 1950's to train in the Academi De Belle Arti Rome, Mohasses moved between Iran, Italy and France throughout the ensuing 40 years without feeling truly settled in either country. This sense of itinerancy is writ large in his works; unencumbered by any nationalistic agenda, and operating outside the confines of any "regional" artistic tradition, Mohasess approaches painting in its purest form; in anatomy he draws from the masters of Reneissance sculpture with their bombastic musculature, in theme he employs wholly unique figures, denizens of his pure unfiltered imagination, and in abstraction he shows a stylistic sophistication on par with his European contemporaries. The present work depicts a blood-hued ghostlike form barely visible in its abstraction. Although seemingly uninhibited and gestural, on closer inspection, the underlying composition shows all the drafted, academic sophistication of Mohasses classical works; this "ordered chaos" as it was deemed by Bacon, is a refined and demanding process as it requires using studied, meticulous method of production to arrive at a work which appears spontaneous, impulsive, and effuse. In subject matter, Mohasses chooses an image which lends itself ideally to abstraction; the ghost itself is considered a "liminal" being, one on the threshold of existence, whilst human in origin its essence is as a "spirit form" that straddles dimensions; given the mystery of their form ghosts have been demarked from extant beings through varying levels of opacity and deformity. Mohassess uses this deformation to marry artistic abstraction with the inherent abstruseness of his subject, thus, if we can never truly know the form the apparition takes, and it exists only as a figment of myth and imagination, abstraction is the most appropriate method of capturing it, through this Mohasses makes abstraction a necessary mode of portrayal as opposed to a mere aesthetic choice. Executed whilst Mohassess was working in Iran during the early 1960's, this work exhibits less of the European influence that would take hold of Mohasses oeuvre during his extended time in Italy from the late 1960's onwards. Moving further away from abstraction later in his career, the present work remains as an incredibly rare example of Mohasses expressing his artistic freedom with fluid and unrestrained creativity.