Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian dies at 96, leaving legacy of geometric mirror mosaics

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, an Iranian artist celebrated for her fusion of Islamic geometric art with contemporary sculpture, passed away at the age of 96. Born in December 1922, she relocated to New York in 1944 and graduated from the Parsons School of Design in 1949, where she formed connections with notable figures like Willem de Kooning and Andy Warhol. After returning to Tehran in 1957, she began crafting mirror mosaics influenced by Islamic aesthetics and modernism. Following her exile after the 1978 revolution, she returned to New York before moving back to Iran in 2004, which marked the start of her most productive phase and her inaugural U.S. solo exhibition at the Guggenheim in 2015. The Monir Museum was founded in 2017 at the University of Tehran, and her artwork is held in prominent institutions globally.