
Farhad Ostovani - Aliof's Garden
Préface de Jérôme Thélot
Version française publié par L’Atelier contemporain (Strasbourg) en 2018.
Aliof’s Garden is a memoir of the Iranian painter, Farhad Ostovani. At the heart of the book are the author’s memories of a childhood in pre-revolutionary Iran, a culture he experiences as an abundance of colors, perfumes, foods, and unforgettable characters, all in an improbable landscape where deserts meet dense olive groves and mountains seem to rise from the sea.
Parution le 6 mars 2026 - ISBN 978-2-490399-78-9
DESCRIPTIF DE L'OUVRAGE. "Aliof’s Garden".
Aliof’s Garden is a memoir of the Iranian painter, Farhad Ostovani. At the heart of the book are the author’s memories of a childhood in pre-revolutionary Iran, a culture he experiences as an abundance of colors, perfumes, foods, and unforgettable characters, all in an improbable landscape where deserts meet dense olive groves and mountains seem to rise from the sea.
The book is also a record of the development of a sensibility, an education influenced by those childhood memories, but also by Ostovani’s later voyage to the West, to France where
he has spent most of his adult life, by the challenges of displacement, by the friendships he has made with other creative people (Louis-René des Forêts, Yves Bonnefoy, Jean Starobinski, Jerome Robbins), and by the importance of music, especially J.S. Bach, to his work as a painter.
What sets apart Aliof’s Garden as special is Ostovani’s ability to access the feeling of the past and to describe the emotional content of the art he makes and of the art and artists who play significant roles in his life. The book is marked by an unusual immediacy and simplicity of style. The essays in Aliof’s Garden were written in English between 2007 and 2016. The author wrote an introduction in 2017 for the collection of the essays into a single volume, published in French by L’Atelier contemporain (Strasbourg) in 2018. (Robert Bemis)
BIOGRAPHIE DE L’AUTEUR
Farhad Ostovani was born in 1950 in Lahidjan in the north of Iran. He grew up in Tehran and came to France in 1974 to pursue his studies at the School of Fine Arts in Paris. He has remained in the West, living and working in Italy and the United States, and settling in France where he currently lives and maintains his studio. His work is the subject of a number of essays by the late French poet, Yves Bonnefoy, collected and available in the book, Farhad Ostovani, published by Éditions des Cendres in 2013.
His website is www.farhad-ostovani.net
DESCRIPTIF TECHNIQUE. ISBN 978-2-490399-78-9 - Format 22*22 cm (carré). Environ 180 pages.
INTERIEUR : papier Offset blanc 120 g/m2
Impression : R° Quadri / V° Quadri
COUVERTURE : papier : Carte 1 face 300 g/m2
Impression : R° Quadri
Pelliculage Mat R°
FAÇONNAGE :
Dos carré collé cousu
Collage toile tissu noir
Signet tissu
Gardes avant et arrière sans impression sur papier Offset couleur 160 g/m2
