TEHRAN-The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA) will hold a commemoration ceremony on Wednesday for the late artist Sirak Melkonian who passed away last month.

The ceremony will be part of the “One Work, One Session” program, in which a painting by Melkonian will be displayed and examined by veteran painters Gholamhossein Nami and Hassan Mourizinejad as well as art researcher and critic Abdolbassir Hosseinbor, ILNA reported.

Melkonian, an Iranian-Armenian painter and one of the founders of the modern art movement in the country passed away on August 17 in Toronto, Canada, at 93.

Born in Tehran, Melkonian met Marcos Grigorian, a prominent Iranian-Armenian modernist painter, after graduating from high school and learned modern European art and the art of the world from him. Melkonian's early works had a figurative and realistic approach.

In 1957, he won the Contemporary Iranian Artists Award at the Iran-America Society, and in 1958 he won the Imperial Court Prize, Tehran Biennial. Grigorian encouraged him to move to Italy to study art at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma. He quit studying there and continued learning art experimentally. He participated in the Venice Biennale and soon afterward won the Paris Biennale prize.

In the early 1960s Melkonian began focusing more specifically on abstraction in his work, and became a leading figure in the Iranian art scene, due to his successes at home and internationally.

Melkonian founded the Azad Art Group in the early 1970s, with some other important artists living and working in Iran at the time. They were introduced formally at the Tehran International Art Fair in 1974, pushing the boundaries and understanding of conceptual art and installation works in Iran.

Limited color palettes and the emphasis on line and form in Melkonian's works have always been more important than the subject. The figurative language of his works has found an expressionist and then abstract side over time. Melkonian's mastery of visual qualities of line and color has created a perfect cohesion and balance that may be considered the closest common feature of his works with pristine nature.

Melkonian exhibited his work in over 140 exhibitions worldwide, from Tehran to Paris, New York to Yerevan. His works can be found in major public and private international collections; such as the Niavaran Palace, TMoCA, and LACMA.

The commemoration ceremony will start at 5 p.m. at the conference hall of the TMoCA, located next to Laleh Park, on North Kargar St. Admission is free for the public.

SS/SAB