Bahman Mohasses

Mohassess is the most prominent artist who was openly gay in Iran, which is still stigmatized. He was the subject of the Mitra Farahani film documentary, Fifi Howls from Happiness (2013).

• Name — Bahman Mohassess بهمن محصص • Born — 1 March 1931 • Birthplace — Rasht, Iran • Died — 28 July 2010 • Place of death — Rome, Italy • Known for — Painter, sculptor, translator, theatre director • Education — Tehran University of Art • Website — bahmanmohassess.com

Bahman Mohasses was born in 1931 in Rasht, Iran. The Mohasses house consisted of approximately 15 families who were land owners of Lahijan and were in the trade of tea and silk and lived in the Pordsar neighborhood of Lahijan. According to Hossein Mahjoobi, "All Mohasseses had strange personalities, but Bahman seemed to be the most complex and unique of them." In his autobiographical documentary Fifi Howls from Happiness, Mohasses mentions that he is descended from the Mongols on his father's side and the Qajars on his mother's side. He was a cousin of the celebrated Iranian illustrator and cartoonist, Ardeshir Mohasses, residing in New York. At age 14, he learned painting by apprenticing with Seyyed Mohammed Habib Mohammedi, who had studied art in Moscow at the Russian Academy of Arts. He moved with his family from Rasht to Tehran, where he attended Tehran's Faculty of Fine Arts. During the same period he joined the "Cockfight Art and Culture Society" (Anjoman-e Khorous Jangi), established by Jalil Ziapour, and was, for some time, the editor of the literary and art weekly "Panjeh Khoroos" (Rooster Foot). Through this period, he was part of an avant-garde artistic movement, which included his good friend Nima Yooshij, known as the 'father of modern Persian poetry'; along with Sohrab Sepehri, Houshang Irani and Gholamhossein Gharib, who were all considered progressive artists of their time. In 1954 he moved to Italy to study at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma.

• Illustration — Chairs by Bahman Mohasses He returned to Iran in 1964 and participated in Venice, São Paulo, and Tehran Biennale. Mohasses directed plays, including Pirandello's Henry IV at Goethe Institute and Ghandriz Gallery in Tehran. He also translated books of several authors, including Eugène Ionesco, Malaparte, and Pirandello. He stayed in Iran until 1968, before returning to Rome, where he received commissions for statues to be placed in Tehran. Some of his public works in Iran were destroyed or damaged after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, with the artist subsequently destroying all his remaining works in Iran. He occasionally travelled to Iran and died in self-imposed seclusion in Rome in 2010.

In 1977, he married Nezhat-al-Molook, the daughter of his father's cousin, who was a teacher in Bandar-e-Anzali and later became the head of the Teaching College for Women. She died of brain cancer around 1998. Mohasses said he was proud of his homosexuality and lived it fully. The stigma associated with his homosexuality affected his reception in Iran, where his work was exhibited with those of Francis Bacon, another gay painter, only in 2017, albeit these works being in storage of Tehran museum for decades.

• The Eye That Hears (1967; Cheshmi ke mishenavad) • Fifi Howls from Happiness (2013; Persian transliterated: Fifi az khoshhali zooze mikeshad)

Bahman Mohasses is recorded as painter, sculptor and translator.