Foundation

Iranian painter,
and bas- relief sculptor

He was a leading member of the Saqqakhaneh movement, and was known for his conceptual artwork. Arabshahi had worked in Tehran, Paris, and California. Massoud Arabshahi was born in 1935 in Tehran, Pahlavi Iran. He has attended the Public High School for Fine Arts in Tehran. In 1968, he graduated from the College of Decorative Arts at Tehran University (now University of Tehran). Arabshahi had studied painting under Shokouh Riazi.

His sources of inspiration comprise Achaemenid and Assyrian art as. well as Babylonian carvings and inscriptions. Combining tradition and modernity. he held his first solo exhibition at the Iran-India Centre, his work’s was created in various mediums, including oil paint-on canvas, architectural bas-reliefs, and other sculptures. Arabshahi’s bas-reliefs were commissioned for the Office for Industry and Mining (1971), Tehran; and for the California Insurance Building (1985) in Santa Rosa, California, U.S. He died on September 16, 2019, in Tehran, Iran.