Khosrow Hassanzadeh

Khosrow Hassanzadeh (; 21 December 1963 – 3 July 2023) was an Iranian painter, printmaker and installation artist.

Life and career Hassanzadeh was born on 21 December 1963 in Tehran, to a working-class Azerbaijani family who were fruit-sellers. He was just 17 years old when the Iran-Iraq war broke out, and he dropped out of school and enlisted in the Basiji militia, but was subsequently obliged to remain as a conscript. When he returned from the war, he chose to work on themes that reflected his experiences of war.

Following his return to civilian life, he studied art, enrolling in the Mojtama-e-Honar University (1989–1991) where he studied painting and later at the Persian Literature at Azad University (1995–99), both in Tehran. His art teachers advised him to "draw small" so that his work would be marketable, but he ignored this advice. From the outset, he was determined to paint large murals and posters. The latter paintings used police mug shots to pay tribute to sixteen prostitutes murdered by a serial killer in Mashhad, a religious capital of Iran. The paintings were created after filmmaker Maziar Bahari commissioned Hassanzadeh to create a poster for his film, And Along Came a Spider. In Terrorist (2004) the artist questioned the concept of 'terrorism' in international politics by portraying himself, his mother, and sisters as 'terrorists'.

Unlike many of his contemporaries who have left Iran, Hassanzadeh chose to continue to live and work as an artist in Iran. He was based in Tehran, where he worked as an actor, visual artist, and ceramist. His work featured in many exhibitions in Europe and the Middle East. Time magazine once described him as one of the country's "hottest" artists.

Hassanzadeh died due to methanol poisoning on 3 July 2023, at the age of 59.

Work Hassanzadeh's works often deal with issues that are considered sensitive in Iranian society and therefore he was frequently referred to as a 'political' artist or 'pop' artist. Scholars have described his style as somewhere between dissident and regime art. Mother, pastel on paper, series, 1988 Ashoura installation (collaboration with Sadegh Tirakhan), exhibited at TMOCA, Summer, 2001 Terrorist, a four piece series, 2004 Ready to Order, mixed media, 215 × 135 × 28 cm, 2009 Dome mosaic, ceramic plate, 2010

Literature Shatanawi, Mirjam, Tehran Studio Works. The Art of Khosrow Hassanzadeh. London: Saqi Books, 2007. Shatanawi, Mirjam, 'The disquieting art of Khosrow Hassanzadeh', in: ISIM Review 18, Autumn 2006, pp. 54–55.