ArtDayME: Farhad Moshiri, a famous Iranian painter, died at the age of 61.

Moshiri's works have attracted the attention of many American and European collectors, and the people of the Middle East also follow his works. 

Moshiri's works have been sold for millions of dollars in prestigious auctions around the world.

His works are housed in the collections of The British Museum, London, UK; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar; the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, USA; and François Pinault Collection, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy.

Moshiri was born in Shiraz, Iran and lived between Tehran and Paris during his life. He studied fine arts at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, in the 1980s, where he first started experimenting with installations, video art and painting. He received his MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 1984, before moving back to Tehran in 1991. He subsequently became well known for his ironic interpretations of hybrids between traditional Iranian forms and those of the consumerist and globalized popular culture widespread in his country.

In the early 2000s, Moshiri was most readily associated with his paintings of jars, which are decorated with traditional Iranian sayings and poetic verse, written in Persian calligraphy. These monumental containers have been described as receptacles of life, memory and desire, and reflect his fascination with archaeology.

His painted jars, which form a trademark of his production, look like three-dimensional objects, bursting with popular foods, drinks and desserts, with popular scripts elegantly written on their body. Other significant works include Stereo Surround Sofa (2004), Silver Portrait on Red (2004), Diamond Brain (2004-5) and A Dream in Tehran (2007).

His wife Shirin Aliabadi was an Iranian contemporary multidisciplinary visual artist who died on October 1, 2018.