TEHRAN -- Iranian pioneer of modern painting Ahmad Esfandiari believes that traditional painting contributed to modern art and that those who entered this field in the early days accomplished a great task.

“In the early days of the era of modern art, people were unfamiliar with this genre and traditional-style painters showed some prejudice against it,” he told the Persian service of CHN.
Talking about the arrival of contemporary art in Iran, he said, “The graduates of the Fine Arts College of the University of Tehran changed the basis of art in Iran, and some of them became great masters. Some artists did not make the change, and others developed along with the modern art movement.”
With reference to the painting exhibit underway at the Saba Art and Cultural Institute, he added, “The works displayed at the exhibit are by the great masters of Iranian art.”
Esfandiari went on to explain “In those days during the 1960’s and 1970s, when the Kamalolmolk School of art was still teaching students the traditional miniature style, modern painting was developing in Europe and it was then that the French archaeologist Andre Godar directed a college in which modern painting was taught in Iran.”
He went on to say that in those years some good students were nurtured and several art galleries were also established.
Esfandiari noted that these days there are a large number of art galleries and thus people have become accustomed to modern art.
He also recommended that young painters get to know their own characters and form their own style and advised them not to imitate others, but at the same time to study high quality works of art