March 2016

Aydin Aghdashloo born October
30, 1940 is an Iranian painter,
author, art critic, art historian and
graphic designer.
He currently lives in Tehran, Iran,
and lectures in different Iranian
Universities besides his professional
work.
Early life
Aydin Aghdashloo was born in
Rasht, Iran. His father, Mammad
Aghdashloo (born Mammad Hajiev)
was an engineer and the Labour
Minister in Azerbaijan Democratic
Republic between 1919 and 1920.
After the invasion of Azerbaijan by
the Soviet Red Army in 1920, he
and his wife Nahida, Aydin's
mother, had to flee Baku,
Azerbaijan, and take refuge in
Tabriz, Iran. To avoid identification
by the Soviet spies in Iran,
Mammad changed his last name
from Hajiev to Aghdashloo and
later moved to Rasht, where Aydin
was born, and finally to Tehran
when Aghdashloo was 5 years old.
Aydin Aghdashloo started selling his
paintings from the age of 14, two
years after his father's death as a
result of kidney complications.
Shah's era
Aghdashloo was appointed by the
Shahbanu (Empress) of Iran, Farah
Pahlavi, as the "Head of Artistic
Affairs of Shahbanu's Special
Bureau". His responsibilities
included purchase of artworks from
contemporary artists such as Andy
Warhol, Pablo Picasso and Claude
Monet for the Tehran Museum of
Contemporary Art. He also helped
establish the Reza Abbasi Museum
in Tehran in 1977 and was the head
of the museum until 1979.
He married his first wife, Iranian
actress Shohreh Vaziri-Tabar, aka
Shohreh Aghdashloo, in 1971. They
divorced in 1979.
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