Untitled (Tomato Plant)

Christie’s presents three prominent works from Iranian modernist painter Manoucher Yektai during his important period of reinvestigation into the still life as a form of art. Combining the features of the Schools of New York and Paris, the three seminal examples of Yektai’s vibrant oeuvre demonstrate his mastery of controlled yet sporadic brushstrokes and his calculated application of colour and impasto.

The 1962, Tomato Plant, painting is a delightful example from his work in the early 60s that captures his Abstract Expressionist proficiency which had defined him as a prominent international artist rather than simply an Iranian artist, which was alone a title to be proud of. It is evident that Yektai’s longing for abstraction is never reached to its maximum potential, and his appreciation for decipherable forms such as the tomato plant will exist to serve a function of naturalism. The strong blue and green background sets the tone for the sprawling loud subject of the tomato plant in the foreground. The thick brushstrokes create bulbs of red and green that hang like tomatoes off the tall-standing tree.

His unique style of painterly looseness and definitively tight composition is evident in the second work, Bowl of Fruit, in which the same process is taken to merge a classical still-life subject with the abstracted forms that are common with Yektai. The composition is created with a series of several thick brushstrokes that pair nicely with the unpainted canvas, which he believes is enough to give us an understanding of the subject at hand.

The third and largest piece of the three works, Untitled (Still Life), is an elegantly simple still-life of a vase of roses stood beside a vibrant fruit bowl. In its essence, the composition is satisfying and pleasing to the eyes. The deep reds of the pomegranates pair well with the roses, and the leaves that stem from the vase can be felt in the green tones of the fruit bowl. Yektai’s masterful use of negative space, as well as his comfortably positioned subjects, achieves an airy and light-hearted tone which allows the viewer to float in calmness.

Yektai found himself in New York following the end of the Second World War, and introduced his talent to the likes of painters such as Pollock, de Kooning, Newman and Kline through his tight-knit relationship with renowned gallerist Leo Castelli. During the Cold War era of the 60s, during which both these works were painted, artists such as Yektai turned towards an experimentation of figurative and abstract forms, developing a clear line of sight on his subject matter and the shapes and colours that creates them.