Background
Manoucher Yektai was born on December 22, 1921, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran.
یکتایی منوچهر
Manoucher Yektai was born on December 22, 1921, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran.
Manoucher Yektai began his artistic studies at the Fine Arts Faculty of Tehran University. He left the institution without a degree. Instead, young artist travelled to Paris, France where he had studied under the tutelage of a cubist painter Amédée Ozenfant from about 1945 for two years and later in New York City.
To pursue his training, Yektai enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts and at the Atelier of André Lhote in Paris, France in 1946 where he spent one year.
Finally, the artist came back to New York City and enrolled at the Art Students League in 1947. He had studied there for one year under Robert Hale.
Manoucher Yektai started his career as an artist form his debut solo exhibitions in Woodstock in 1949. Soon, the artist was introduced to the gallerist Grace Borgenicht. The latter organized three solo shows of the artist in 1951, 1952, 1953. It was since that time that Yektai’s style started to be considered as Abstract-Expressionism.
After, the artist was completely involved in the movement – he got acquainted with many of its representatives such as Mark Rothko, Mark Tobey, and Philip Guston. Yektai took part at the group exhibitions dedicated to the style at the Stable Gallery along with Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman and Franz Kline. Despite, he had presented his artworks on the solo shows held at the Poindexter Gallery from 1957 till 1964.
By the age of thirty, Manoucher elaborated his own painting manner – an abstract expressionism based on his personal philosophical approach according to which he tried to preserve sentiment and feeling within his forms. It can be seen in such his artworks as Open Window (1951), Curtain and Still Life (1952), Checkered Table Cloth, Fruit on Table, Girl1, and Head, all of 1953, as well as in Yellow Curtain (1954).
At the early 1950s and at the beginning of the 1960s, Yektai started to produce his first so-called “action portraits” in which he managed to combine the Action Painting technics with the traditions of the portrait. Among the examples of such paintings are Concierge of 1960, Eleni II of 1964, later Seated Nude (1984-85) and In Front of Window (1990). The artist exhibited the creations of this period at the Semia Huber Gallery, Zürich, Switzerland (1960-1963, 1965), at Anderson Meyer Gallery in Paris and at Feingarten Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, both in 1960. The first solo exhibition in the United Kingdom was organized at the Picadilly Gallery in London in 1961 and was followed by the shows in 1962, 1964 and 1970.
The next decade, the main genre for Manoucher Yektai became landscapes with the huge use of white colours, like in Corner of Forest (1977), and in A Body of Landscape (1978). Among the exhibitions of the period were the solo presentations at Galerie Zand, Teheran in 1977-78, at Alex Rosenberg Gallery of New York City in 1981 and 1984, and New York City, Kent, Connecticut in 1988.
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Still Life
Portrait of Mrs. Homa Vakil Mansour
Portrait of Karl Flinker
Quotations:
"I was a figurative painter."
"I must be some kind of Action Painter."
Quotes from others about the person
"Yektai is in the Abstract Expressionist school, not as an undergraduate, but as a member of the faculty." Arts magazine's reviewer