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Lot Essay
'He who can see a garden sketched in the tree's memory
Is forever, enlightened by the rapture of Eden's zephyr.'
(An extract from Sohrab Sepehri's poem Sureh Tamasha, in A. Kabir, Sohrab Sepehri - Poet, Painter, Tehran 1990, p. 141; translated from Farsi).
Sohrab Sepehri's most sought after series, the Trees series, echo his restrained persona as a poet, a painter and an intellectual. Depicted with an austere style, with an almost ascetic intent, the trees are either attenuated or broad, often featured without leaves or branches rather focusing on the sturdy quality of their trunks. Abstracted from individual features, they reflect the artist's belief in the beauty of the concise, a principle deriving from the Zen tradition for which he developed an inclination after travelling to the Far-East and Japan in particular in the 1960s. Attentive to the essence and the metaphysical meaning of the tree rather than its external traits, Sepehri depicts his tree trunks in a way that is reminiscent of the misty landscapes of Japanese hand-painted scrolls, and frames them both within and outside of the pictorial space. Combined with the vast swathes of blank space, the textured trees truncated by the picture plane seem to exist beyond the boundaries of the composition.
The limited palette consisting of earthy grays, browns and greens equally reflect the formal limitations of the Zen haiku and are reminiscent of the ink parchments illustrated by the Zen masters Sesshu Toyo and Hakuin Ekaku.
Deprived of any superfluous details and balanced in their composition while being delicately textured and fairly identifiable, the trees incite the viewer to reflect upon and contemplate the inner essence of life. Unaffectedly, the tree itself is an archetype of nature that is symbolically filled with meaning, that of the tree of life with its body rooted in earth and its crown in the infinite space around it. The tree is often associated with immortality and longevity and as such, subtly echoes the philosophical beliefs of the artist. The present work, painted in 1970, is most likely one of the few that the artist depicted while visiting the United States. In the Hamptons, he encountered the late art dealer and patron Elaine Benson who not only became a friend, but also actively helped the artist particularly by curating his first solo exhibition on the East coast in 1971, an exhibition that caught the attention of many, most of whom were intrigued by Sepehri's origins and Far-Eastern inspirations. The present work was most likely part of that exhibition, as it was gifted on the same occasion to the gallery owner's husband Emmanuel whose name is inscribed on the reverse of the work and later acquired by the present owner's late mother in New York.
Is forever, enlightened by the rapture of Eden's zephyr.'
(An extract from Sohrab Sepehri's poem Sureh Tamasha, in A. Kabir, Sohrab Sepehri - Poet, Painter, Tehran 1990, p. 141; translated from Farsi).
Sohrab Sepehri's most sought after series, the Trees series, echo his restrained persona as a poet, a painter and an intellectual. Depicted with an austere style, with an almost ascetic intent, the trees are either attenuated or broad, often featured without leaves or branches rather focusing on the sturdy quality of their trunks. Abstracted from individual features, they reflect the artist's belief in the beauty of the concise, a principle deriving from the Zen tradition for which he developed an inclination after travelling to the Far-East and Japan in particular in the 1960s. Attentive to the essence and the metaphysical meaning of the tree rather than its external traits, Sepehri depicts his tree trunks in a way that is reminiscent of the misty landscapes of Japanese hand-painted scrolls, and frames them both within and outside of the pictorial space. Combined with the vast swathes of blank space, the textured trees truncated by the picture plane seem to exist beyond the boundaries of the composition.
The limited palette consisting of earthy grays, browns and greens equally reflect the formal limitations of the Zen haiku and are reminiscent of the ink parchments illustrated by the Zen masters Sesshu Toyo and Hakuin Ekaku.
Deprived of any superfluous details and balanced in their composition while being delicately textured and fairly identifiable, the trees incite the viewer to reflect upon and contemplate the inner essence of life. Unaffectedly, the tree itself is an archetype of nature that is symbolically filled with meaning, that of the tree of life with its body rooted in earth and its crown in the infinite space around it. The tree is often associated with immortality and longevity and as such, subtly echoes the philosophical beliefs of the artist. The present work, painted in 1970, is most likely one of the few that the artist depicted while visiting the United States. In the Hamptons, he encountered the late art dealer and patron Elaine Benson who not only became a friend, but also actively helped the artist particularly by curating his first solo exhibition on the East coast in 1971, an exhibition that caught the attention of many, most of whom were intrigued by Sepehri's origins and Far-Eastern inspirations. The present work was most likely part of that exhibition, as it was gifted on the same occasion to the gallery owner's husband Emmanuel whose name is inscribed on the reverse of the work and later acquired by the present owner's late mother in New York.