TEHRAN - Iranian folk artist Osman Rahmanzadeh, widely known as the “Father Geppetto of Iran” for his wooden figurines depicting Kurdish life, died on Friday after a period of lung illness.

Rahmanzadeh, born in 1956 in the northwestern city of Bukan, died on the evening of Jan. 2 after about a month of hospitalization, Miras Aria reported.

A self-taught artist who worked alongside jobs such as construction and farming, Rahmanzadeh created more than 1,500 wooden figures over several decades. His works portrayed daily life, customs, clothing, social relations and rituals of Kurdish communities in Iran.

Cultural heritage officials and local artists described his work as having ethnographic significance, documenting lived cultural memory beyond conventional fine art frameworks.

Rahmanzadeh’s works were exhibited in several cities across Iran and in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the report said. One of his most prominent exhibitions was held at Tehran’s Milad Tower in 2011, which introduced his work to a national audience.

In recent years, Rahmanzadeh established a private museum known as the “Father Geppetto Museum” on his own land in the village of Nachit near Bukan. The museum displayed his wooden figures and received visitors including researchers, students and cultural tourists.

The nickname “Father Geppetto” refers to Geppetto, the fictional woodcarver in Carlo Collodi’s 19th-century Italian novel The Adventures of Pinocchio, who creates the wooden puppet Pinocchio.

 AM