TEHRAN – Winners of the 13th Fajr Festival of Visual Arts were honored during the closing ceremony of the event at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall on Thursday. 

The ceremony was attended by Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyyed Abbas Salehi, Deputy Culture Minister for Artistic Affairs Seyyed Mojtaba Hosseini and a limited number of artists.

The participants were competing in the different sections of painting, photo, sculpture, calligraphy, miniature, illustration, cartoon, graphic design and new media.

Farzaneh Neyshaburi from Yazd received the Golden Tooba for best illustrator, and no winner was announced in the calligraphy section.

In the new media section, the Golden Tooba was given to Ehsan Mahdavi. 

In the ceramic section, no winner was announced, and in the graphic design section, Mehrdad Musavi received the Golden Tooba.

Abdolah Hiedari also received the Golden Tooba for best photographer.
 
In the cartoon section, the Golden Tooba award went to Mohammad Aflak, and Mostafa Mohseni received the Golden Tooba award in the sculpture section. 

Mohsen Taqizadeh received the Golden Tooba for best painter, and the Golden Tooba for best miniaturist was given to Zahra Doosti. 

Speaking at the ceremony, Salehi expressed thanks to the organizers who have done their best to hold the festival amid the coronavirus pandemic, and added that the visual arts of Iran have made good progress in recent years. 

In addition, nine veteran Iranian artists were next honored with lifetime achievement awards.
 
The honorees who received the Golden Tooba awards were master of sculpture and ceramics Jafar Najibi, cartoonist Ahmad Abdollahinia, illustrator Saeid Razzaqi, painter Garnic Derhakupian, miniaturist Khashayar Qazizadeh, graphic designer Ahmad Aqaqolizadeh, art researcher Yaqub Ajand, photographer Mohammad-Hossein Heidari and calligrapher Mohammad Salahshur. 

The 13th Fajr Festival of Visual Arts opened at the Saba Art and Cultural Institute with more female artists participating this year.

According to Visual Arts Office director Hadi Mozaffari the coronavirus restrictions and the pandemic gave the artists more opportunities to create artworks.

Over 700 artworks by 511 artists went on display. A collection of prints by a number of Iranian and international artists was also showcased in a special section. 

Lieve Cosyns, Alwin Viaene, Barbara Lambert, Jan Vermandere, Kara Van Reusel, Mieke De Maeyer, Evan Rosato, Stef Bossuyt, Arielle Amir, Bernadette Colburn, Rebecca Giles, Lisa Hamilton, Rachel Hoffman, Emma Kellerdori Miller, Hayley Murphy, Christine Petty and Katrina Simonsen were among the international artists whose artworks went on view at the exhibit. 

The Iranian artists included Farahnaz Rahmati, Nazanin Enayat, Donya Gorji, Kimia Kazemi, Khatereh Lotfi, Aanaali Vakili, Mojdeh Suri and Maryam Yasliani.

Veteran artist Ahmad Vakili was the curator of the exhibition.

Photo: Mehrdad Musavi accepts the Golden Tooba as best graphic designer at the 13th Fajr Festival of Visual Arts at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall on February 25, 2021. (Honaronline/Moein Baqeri)

RM/MMS/YAW