(b Tehran, 1937). Iranian painter and printmaker. He studied at the College of Fine Arts and the College of Decorative Arts in Tehran and began to exhibit his work early in his career, at the Biennales in Paris (1959–63), Tehran (1960–66), São Paulo (1963) and Venice (1964), receiving a number of awards. He first began to be influenced by Iranian Shi`ite folk art in 1959, presenting it in his work in a distinctive way, with neither parody nor satire. He went to live in Paris in 1961 but continued to take a close interest in the development of art in Iran. At the third Tehran Biennale in 1962, held in the Abyaz Palace in the Gulistan compound, he exhibited canvases that consisted of geometric patterns of squares, triangles and circles, using colours characteristic of religious folk art, and covered with calligraphy to create a distinctive texture. It was on this occasion that the Iranian art critic Karim Emami first used the word SAQQAKHANA to describe the mood of Zenderoudi’s work. In works produced in the late 1960s and 1970s, Zenderoudi’s interest in the use of calligraphy developed further. He also executed two series of silkscreen prints for the Koran, published by the Club du Livre in 1972 and 1980. (An untitled etching of 1986 by Zenderoudi is illustrated at IRAN, fig. 3; see also IRAN, §2.)

• Zenderoudi, Hussein
  • Iran, §2: Painting, sculpture and calligraphy
  • Saqqakhana