Kambiz Derambakhsh
Audio of the Entire Interview
Interview Transcript
Part 01
Translated by Zahra Azizi
In Dialogue with Kambiz Derambakhsh Part 1 From childhood to Art School
My father was a military duty officer who had been
assigned a short mission in Shiraz right be for I was born
I was born in Shiraz on 11th June 1942 and spent the first year of my life there
We are originally from Tehran, our house was in Bharestan Square
(nezamieh Alley) and I went to Amiratabak School which was very close
that area was the core where Tehran originated from, that is where the
city was and the newspapers that I worked for later on were all around Ferdowsi Avenue,
very easy to access
I would walk everywhere. In those days things were different to now, you would not go for
a long time without seeing friends and family
, you would bump into famous artists just walking down the street, people
such as Parviz Yahaghi or Ahmad Shamlou
I had a tough childhood. I had a stepmother who did not treat me well; and I think if the pain
abuse and torture that I went through was taken away, I would not be the person that I am today
I started drawing and painting from the age of 8, I would play and experiment with paper
the kites I used to make were different to everyone else’s, they were the most beautiful ones;
or the lanterns I used to make would look so nice in the Tehran velvet sky. In our neighbourhood,
during Muharram children would make all sorts of signs
for the mourning ceremonies and I would always try hard to make mine the best looking ones
I would get tin sheets and cut them up and after making
my shapesand signs I would use my grandmother’s Termeh to put over them
Or at the time as kids it was a great skill to be able to
make Roro’ak (Scooter), it was not like these days
for us the world of toys was a dream. We would sometimes go to Shah Abad Street
to just look at the shop windows
My father was very kind and had
bought us a red toy horse on wheels which we used to play with a lot
and in fact the painter Vahed Khakdan has painted it in some of his paintings.
We loved this horse so much
we would throw it in the pond bring it out, sometimes it would fall apart and we would fix it…
Well yes, It is that world that formed who I am
Even the hardships.one of our childhood games was ‘bee’,
we would go up Light poles and blow red bees that had nested up there
, usually the female bees don’t sting, and we would tie a string to its leg and
pull and throw it around in the air and that would be our toy and own way of amusing ourselves
The interesting thing is that Art and modernity had started around those times
My father worked in the public relations office at the army, he ran the army radio station and
was also editor of the army’s monthly journal, and therefore
I would go there during the summer holidays and my first ever published designs and
drawings were published in that journal
My father encouraged me a lot. Some famous artists used to visit our home such
as Gholamhossein Naghshine, Mohammad Ali Zarandi, Ali Tabesh
My Father would write and directed theatre plays and was an actor too, at the same
time as Garmsiri. His first Farsi Film was made with
Mr Naghshineh, Tabesh, Rasouli Ms Nadereh (Hamideh Kheirabadi)
it was the first film they were acting in and was written by my father, it was the story of an army
officer. Mr. Mohammad Nouri and Iraj Khajeh Amiri composed their first songs for this film
So I grew up with art and amongst artists. I used to act in theatre plays at night
viewings at the Pars Theatre which was later called Farhang theatre which was
directed by Mr. Habibi.
I would get off school at 4 or 5 pm and would go straight to the
theatre to practice and perform on stage
They had made me an army costume because the officer who
the story was based on wanted his children to dress the same as him
So they made me a costume to size but they had not been able to find a hat that would fit
me so they fitted my father’s hat for me which I ended up looking funny with. So all of
these experiences has affected my work
At AmirAtabak School, I made friends with the composer Hormoz Farhat and his brother
they used to play the violin and the accordion on stage at school
During the fourth and fifth grade I had started doing some interesting
drawings for the wall newspapers we used to make
After that my father sent me to Adib high school,
and at the same time I was at high school my work
was being published in some of Tehran’s best magazines and
publications such as the Sepid Siah (Black & White)
Journal which was very prestigious at the time. Dr. Ali Behzadi was very fond of me at the time
and so they invited me to work for Ettela’aat Weekly; I was given two pages at the age
of 14- I was drawing cartoons
inspired by a person called Jafar Tejaratchi who was an air
force officer who worked with my dad on the army JOURNAL
I was so young and had no proper idea about caricatures, my very idea of cartoons was what
I had seen Mr. Tejaratchi draw at the office for the journal
He once made a note under one of his drawings which was published in a
journal called Asiyayeh Javaan (Young Asia) stating “drawn for the dandy imitator”,
well I was young and well dressed; although when I turned 18 and had become
very successful he congratulated me on finding my own style
I have to say at the time he was imitating a French cartoonist but I was too young to know;
later on I found my own style which is the one the world knows me for today
An interesting memory that I have from my high school days
is that my Math practice book was full of witty drawings
and every time the teacher took it he would be so occupied
with the drawings that he wouldn’t really check my math
and put them in their pocket. So I was never really
good at maths or geometry, I was very good at art and drawing.
so I was told to bring in a good piece of work; I went home and took
an oil painting my dad had bought out of his frame and took it to school
I told them I had painted it. Everyone believed me. The
school principal asked me to leave it at school as a keepsake
When I went home my father was asking for the painting
I didn’t know what to tell him because the school didn’t want
to give it back as it was a beautiful classic oil painting
At school I burst out crying in the end and told them if I wouldn’t take it home my mother
would be very angry and so they allowed me to take it back in the end
At the time when you finished the 9th grade you could go to art school
When I started art school my work was already being published in many journals.
I was making good money and I was buying myself clothes and all sorts of things that I desired.
I once went to Dr. Behzadi and asked him for my weekly wage,
sometimes he would literally take money out of his pocket and give it to me;
sometimes when I gave him the work it would still be wet because I lived close to his office
so I would tell him to be careful not to smudge the ink
So yes I once asked him for my wage and he told me that my mother
had picked it up, I asked him why he had given it to her
he said that she had told him that I would buy a lot of junk food
with my money and that it wasn’t good for me, which I told him wasn’t true
When I went to art school I was taught by Mr. Hannibal Alkhas and Marcos Grigorian
One day Mr. Alkhas told me that I was his student and I was making more money than him
It was true. I did not learn much in Art school, they would
make us do still life drawings of pears and pomegranates
and vases and someone would come and correct it. All my three years went by like this
There were people like Behrouz Golzari, Ali Karimi and Rafi Halati
(the actor) who would teach there in the afternoons as their second occupation
Photo Caption: Kambiz Derambakhsh, Abbas Mashadizadeh,
Behzad Golpayegani (Fine Arts School of Art)
Many great artists who are known in the world and are selling
their work internationally such as Parviz Tanavoli or Hossein Zendehroudi
were at the same Art School as myself, although in the years above me.
Hossein Mahjoubi, Behzad Golpayegani, Faramarz Pilaram, Jafar Rouhbakhsh
and many first class Iranian artists were all students and graduates of that school
and although they were so young and only in the 9th or 10th grade at the time,
each and every one of them was a master, an artist; and I was among them.
Parviz Tanavoli
Hossein Zendehroudi
Hossein Mahjoubi
Behzad Golpayegani
Faramarz Pilaram
Jafar Rouhbakhsh
Part 02
Translated by Zahra Azizi
In Dialogue with Kambiz Derambakhsh
Part 2
Travelling to Germany and Working for the Press
When did you finish Art School (high School level)?
It was around 1957, 1958 when I bought a TBT bus ticket to Germany for 500 Tomans
I drew some cartoons with no comments because I didn’t know
German, and I thought I could go and work there
I went with a friend, my father had given me two carpets to sell if I was ever strained for money
It took me a week to get there in the cold winter weather
After two or three days at the hotel, we went to the biggest newspaper office there with
a portfolio and a couple of rugs, they bought a few of my drawings and gave me around 800 marks
I sold the carpets and started working. I spent two years in Germany,
sometimes my work would get published and sometimes it wouldn’t
and when It wouldn’t I had to make money doing manual labour
I had very delicate hands and sometimes I would have to pull carts of building construction material
I would get blisters all over my hands, Once I had to take out a big door
and replace it with a new one
I experienced a lot, and a lot of hardship that could come along in life
It had been 10 or 12 years after the end of the second world war
in Germany and there was still a lot of post war wreckage
you would be walking down the street and a brick would fall right in front of you
So they were in great need of foreign workers; so I found a job and at the
same time I wanted to know about cartoon illustrations in the world
and I wanted to be able to work at a world class level
I met my German wife who was young and beautiful and from a well off
family during that time as well
She would come to the site I was working and would ask for ‘the Iranian
worker’, she would come up to meet me beautifully dressed
and everyone would wonder why this lady was meeting with this worker
At the locksmith factory where I was working, sometimes when my work was published,
the owner would open my mail and come out and announce that ‘our worker
is having his drawings published in leading press publications’ in a boastful way
The money wasn’t a lot but it got me through life
Later because I hadn’t attended military training my passport was not
extended and so I went back to Tehran with my wife
I went to Tofigh newspaper office with a portfolio of work that had been
published abroad and was employed straight away
with a small salary of 600 Tomans. Later this went up to 900 Tomans
I bought a house for 150 Tomans; my wife whose father built bridges
and made a living through large scale architecture and construction,
would do all sorts of basic housework, washing clothes in a pan, cooking in
the balcony, using fruit boxes as shelves for spices etc
leading a very basic life with house work while
I worked outside, our child was born in the same house
I had a contract with Tofigh that stated I was not allowed to work elsewhere,
after 7 years that I had really progressed
I told them that I wanted to work for other papers as well, which they did not allow
So when I left tofigh I made ten times more money as
I was working with many papers simultaneously,
including with Keyhan, the Zaneh Rooz (Moden Woman) section and the
English section [Mostafa Mesbahzadeh Founder of Keyhan Newspaper].
I worked for nearly all the papers especially the highbrow ones including
Negin which was published by Mahmoud Enayat,
or Ferdowsi Magazine for which I drew covers and had essays by Iraj Pezeshkzad.
There was also Ayandegan newspaper (founded by Daryoush Homayoun)
which had my best political
works published on the first page and Masoud Behnoud would read
and explain my illustrations on the news at night
After the revolution, Ayandegan was closed. I had anticipated it
judging from the situation and because my wife was German
I sent her and the children back to Germany a year before the revolution
because my children were attending German school
and their school closed as well. Suddenly I was making very little money
so I sold the house and many of our belongings which I had worked for
and gathered over 20 years
things that I liked; I either sold them for a very low price or gave them to friends and family and
packed a couple of suitcases with the absolute essentials and bought a ticket to fly Germany
All this came to a total of 200 marks, 140 of which I had to pay for excess luggage at the airport
The officer who checked my passport said ‘it is a pity you have to
leave Mr. Derambakhsh’ and I told him I had no other choice
I went to Germany where we lived in a room with my wife and
two children and a dog at my mother in law’s house for two years
Till I finally compiled a portfolio to work for the press there
and started making money from scratch
Imagine I had been a famous artist, people would ask for my autograph
my last exhibitions were at the Iranian American society in Tehran
and The Seyhoun Art Gallery where
I displayed my black and white miniatures, all these exhibitions having been successful
I went to Germany and no one knew me, I was a nobody and had to start all over again.
The first years after the revolution was very hard for me in terms of work,
I suddenly found my child’s shoes were torn
whereas before they wore the best clothes and had the best luxuries in life,
even though my son was 14,
I had bought him a motorbike, they would ski etc. but all of this had ended.
Ii worked for 22 years, won the world’s best awards,
the best museums in the world bought my work
Had my work published in the most prominent newspapers
all over the world, in Italy, France, Austria, Germany, New York
became a member of the National Cartoonists Society
in New York and had my work published many times in the New York Times
Moving gained me worldwide fame and acknowledgement.
Part 03
Translated by Zahra Azizi
In Dialogue with Kambiz Derambakhsh
Part 3
Moving Back to Iran
What happened was that Europe was gradually experiencing a financial
crisis, which has now reached its peak
Many papers and Journals were affected as a result,
including the weekly that I was working for which was my main source of income
When the Editor in chief of that journal passed away,
a new young editor replaced him and soon the journal went bankrupt
Large magazines were reduced to ten, twenty or thirty pages
Many magazines and journals had to close down because of the expensive
price of paper and rising wages, the emergence of the internet
many people who worked in this field as graphic designers, photographers,
poets, cartoonists lost their jobs because they could not be afforded
and the internet provided material for a much lower price. It is still the same these days
I was earning less and less until I received a letter from my mother
saying that she missed me for having not seen me for 25 years
that she was going blind, and that she wanted to see me
I told my family that I would go visit and return but when I flew back my
passport was taken away and I was told that I was not allowed to leave the country
So I came back and Mr Sami’ Azar and Kiumars Saberi (GolAgha) who were at
a good position during those days reassured me and asked me to work with them
At first I lived my with my brothers and gradually they felt I was in
their way so they asked me to leave
I had no place to go. I was getting paid 100 thousand tomans working at GolAgha and
I had only come from abroad and assumed it was
a lot but I had no idea about living expenses in Iran at the time
It was winter and I was very cold, so I went and got a very thin
blanket which cost 50 thousand tomans and that is when
I realized it was not enough, I went and to Mr. Saberi and he said to me very
friendly look Mr. Derambakhsh, accept the 100 thousand and just come here
you don’t need to draw anything; but I thought that’s not something
I can do and they could not afford more than that so I just went on with it
Till one day I asked Mr. Omran Salahi who used to sit
opposite me at GolAgha how much he was getting paid
he told me 60 thousand and that’s when I knew where I was standing
Someone as famous as him was getting paid that much and
I realized that newspaper jobs would not be able to cover my life expenses
Leter Hadi Heidari, a friend of mine who worked for one of the
largest papers told me that they were paying Touka Neyestani 15 Thousand
for his work but they would pay me 30 but also asked me to keep it quiet
which I agreed but didn’t later (laughs). I did two cartoons for them and they gave me an envelope
with 60 thousand tomans in it which was much better than the salary I had at GolAgha
None of this was enough so I started drawing and working
towards exhibitions and now I have 3 or 4 exhibitions a year;
everyone keeps asking me how I do it when usually they
only manage one during a year; but I have no other choice,
I have to, I am a tenant still, And I feel that after 60 years of
work I shouldn’t be, and I shouldn’t have to work this hard.
Interviewer: would you rather be living in Germany now?
No, since I came back from Germany, not only the quality of
my work improved, but also the quantity
I work ten times more and the reason for it is all the encouragement
I receive from fellow Iranians and friends and children even
The last time a child bought a work of mine was a few days ago, he was only 8 years old and his
laptop was full of saved images of my work that he is collecting, this is so appealing and pleasing
it gives me energy when a few 12 year olds ask for my autograph;
being able to live in their world is a great achievement because usually younger generations do not
really connect with the older ones, but when they see that I
am living, thinking and drawing their thoughts and wishes…
When people who don’t really know me see me, they
tell me that they always thought I am a much younger person
And it is true I may be old but I am truly young, an 18 year old person lives
inside me who thrives to share his beautiful world with the youth
not only youth but everyone but I say youth specifically because
I love them and most of my friends are amongst them.
Sometimes I am approached by old men with walking sticks who tell me ‘Oh Kambiz dear
we used to be in the same class’ which turns out to be true or ‘Kambiz Dear
I used to see your work since childhood’ and when I ask how old they
are they say they were born in 1936, and it is amazing
because I tell them that I was not even born then; it is because my name has stayed
with them and my name is older than myself, it has been repeated so many times.
Part 04
Translated by Zahra Azizi
In Dialogue with Kambiz Derambakhsh Part 4 Work periods (1)
I have been drawing for the past 60 years now and my work has been published for 58 years
The first time that my work was published, it was in the Army’s monthly journal,
as my father was an officer and in charge of the Army press
I started following the work of both international and Iranian
cartoonists who were just up and coming in the ‘humours’
page which translated and published the works of the French etc.
I would get inspired by them or imitate them till
I was contacted by a friend Ettela’at Weekley Journal through a colleague of my father
who worked with him at Army but also drew the Layout for Ettela’at
At the time Mr. Anvar Khamei was editor in chief and invited me to meet him,
it was Mr. Amaan Manteghi who had a humour column there at the time and
drew cartoons of for example the Epic Rostam in the 22nd century
So my serious work started there around 1956 and immediately went
onto work at Sepid Siah (Black & White) magazine
which was very professional and the covers were all done by Mr. Moaveni,
all dotted drawings of significant personalities in black and white
hence the name of the journal, I was invited there by
Mr. Behzadi and was sometimes given two spreads for my work
and this was a lot for a young person who had just started high school
It paid well and the editorial always paid me in cash which
was very pleasant and encouraging for me.
I have to say that I did the work for money to start off with but later I fell in love with it;
I now cannot live or think without it and all my days and nights are engaged with this art.
Dr. Ali Behzadi used to show me foreign cartoons and ask me to make them Iranian
I used to draw them with Iranian clothes and in the social context and climate of those days
For example there was a character and personage that came to life named Zhigolo,
who were people with styled hair who looked chic but their socks and undergarments had holes
or pretended to be rich but were actually poor, pretentious snobs who weren’t themselves;
they tied a scarf around their oiled hair at night so it would stay up styled in the morning
I had called one of these characters Mamoosh Pouchetian who did a lot of strange things
I did a lot of things that were peculiar and interesting for my age; and I have to say there
was not a journal or magazine or paper that I didn’t work for
I would provide them with a lot of material
I tried to draw a series of cartoons with no comments,
all these no comment cartoons had a formula,
it would be e person who was left on island with a date tree or an ascetic Mortaz on needles etc.
these ideas caused me to work on themes that would develop my thoughts
When I finished art school I went to Germany and
worked for a few different journals there over two years
I then returned to Iran and started working for Tofigh
newspaper which was very popular among people
For me it was the first full time professional job where
I had to start at 8 am and work till 7 or 8 pm every day
Tofigh was not just a newspaper, they had weekly, monthly and yearly periodicals and
post cards, cartoons had to be drawn for advertisements
, and I had to work in all these sections which gave me a lot of practice
and started me off well, meanwhile I tried to use the experience
from my work in Germany to somehow feed it into the
drawings I was doing for Tofigh, a series which
I named ‘No Comment’ that was published as a book later on by Franklin Institute in which
Najaf Daryabandari worked and also had a magazine for children;
in which I used to draw cartoons for its last page weekly
After Tofigh I worked with Mhsen Davalloo who was a cartoonist himself
and was the hangout place for all journalist
He also published a magazine called ‘Caricature’. He had won an award and I had just
realized that there was a cartoon competition and a biennale so I got the details
The Olympic games in Mexico was coming up and I did a work based on that and won.
The story was about a Mexican man
because Mexicans are a poor nation and everyone was talking about why such
a poor country has to spend so much money on the Olympics
so my work depicted the man having his foot chained to the Olympic rings while sitting down
This piece of work won in Canada and so I started participating every year
The way it works is that once you become known in one festival, other ones around
the world get their hands on your details and invite you to take part
This had become a new engagement for me and a few other
cartoonists from Iran were participating as well
At the time people were very secretive about these events
and they would usually not give details as to when
and which one they are taking part in because they did not want the competition
But I was never like this since the beginning, I wasn’t jealous
and I really enjoyed seeing their work,
I was interested in researching the work of anyone who worked in the same field.
Nonetheless I kept going and I could feel that my work
getting closer to the international style of cartoons and
if you see my book you can tell that my cartoons were departing from
the classic sort of Turkish style that they had in Tofigh
A character emerged in my work that is not similar
to the way I draw today but it is a much simpler and
different shape and these characters became more
developed and more simplified over the years.
The first time it came to life was 40 years ago, it is a very
simple character with no geopolitical state or cultural attires,
he is a simple human being who could belong to anywhere.
Part 05
Translated by Zahra Azizi
In Dialogue with Kambiz Derambakhsh Part 5 Work periods (2)
When I moved back to Germany after the revolution, Nebelspalter, the Swiss satirical
magazine which was one of the best in the world and amongst the top 4 of its kind,
would publish double pages of my work. It was a very well-known magazine internationally
who also used my work on the front and back cover and this is how people
and leading cartoonists came to know me all over the world
I became an award winning famous international
cartoonist. Every time I had to travel for these awards,
they would fly me out with the best flights and have me stay
at the best hotels and provide me with top class hospitality
whether it was when I won the $20K prize in Tokyo, Turkey or elsewhere.
For some of these awards I was invited as Jury or head of Jury panels
When I won those awards, The Iranian press who had never
mentioned me before started talking about me and how
‘Kambiz Derambakhsh had won the most important cartoon biennale award
in the world’, it was something they became proud of.
Morteza Momayyez once wrote in one of his reviews on me that ‘what Kambiz Derambakhsh
has done has made friends and foes take their hats off to him’ and it’s true
I have a series of works in colour. The fact is that during my time in Iran
before I went abroad I only drew in black and white
but when I moved to Europe, my colleagues at the magazines I worked for would
add watercolours and bright colours on very simple designs and
I could see that their work was being published more than mine,
I soon realized it was because of their use of colour and these
magazines were in colour too also I decided to incorporate some colour into my work
When I did, my work made it to the covers in no time. My
European colleagues would ask me about the techniques and tools
I was using, because in the same way that I had established my own style
in drawing, my use of colour was also a signature of my own
It was all done by hand, beautifully painted and took time.
These days they do it all on computers but there is something
about hand drawings and paintings which will always be
special. I think one can draw an analogy between
computer drawings and hand drawings similar that a plastic plate
and a china plate. This is why I hardly use computers
I have worked on any theme you can think of, but when I have exhibitions
I usually filter the work to present one theme, for instance clowns or musicians
and they have always been present in my work
I have a complete series on the theme of books, journalism, newspaper,
censorship, I have worked so much that sometimes
when an old work of mine comes up I can’t even remember it;
because of the vastness, large quantity and the wealth of work I have done over time
With the volume of work that I have accomplished
I could have published 100 books, however publishing
work is very difficult in Iran and in some senses more difficult abroad
My first book titled ‘No Comment’ was published in Iran, and was one of a kind because
there wasn’t anything similar to it and my illustrations were very modern
abstract, astounding and ahead of their time. It was
published by Franklin Publishing Institute at the Time of Karim Emami
and it was very enjoyable for myself. It was planned that my book
of Miniatures would be published too but then the war started
and everything got cancelled; I went to Germany and the book never got published
till 2 years ago when a good friend of mine Hassan Karimzadeh designed
the layout for it and it ended up being published in a beautiful format.
I published a book titled ‘Kambiz’ in Milan, Italy in 1985.
Italian newspapers talked of it a lot at the time.
It won the Book of the Year Award, and an Italian critic wrote ‘Kambiz’s drawings are as soft
as silk and as tough as steel’ which became the title for a later book of mine called ‘Silk and Steel’
I had another book called ‘The World is My Home’ published in France 3 years ago
by Lafon Publishers who are a literary publishing company
they had never published a solely illustrated book before but they like it and so went on with it
The book is available online and in Paris. The book entails
translations of two poems by Kadkani and Moshiri.
A reason why I was awarded the order of Chivalry in France was the same book.
It was a compilation of some of my best works that I had drawn over 40 years.
Ofoq Publication also printed some of my books,
first in large and then in small dimensions as they were not very affordable.
They are called ‘A diary of Fairies’ and ‘Don’t bother the
Labouring Ant’ which is all about animals
for instance one page shows a number of chicks and is titled ‘The eggs that were
never eaten’ or another one is a bird watching an egg
being fried in a pan and thinking ‘To be or not to be’.
I have another 3 or 4 books titled ‘Visual Stories’ which have been published in series
in the Hamshahri Narratives section and are comprised of 200 drawings
‘If Da Vinci Saw me’ is a compilation of clowns in colour published by Sales
Publication in large dimensions similar to the miniatures
My final project is about the characters I call ‘Adamak’ which are done in lithography format which
I am very fond of, just as interested as I have been in Iranian miniature
They are being printed on large canvases. With the number and wealth of ideas that
I have this project can go on for years
The tools I have are absolutely common tools accessible to every artist,
it mostly comes down to what one does with them
I have a series of works themed around playing cards.
When I came back to Tehran from Germany
I had a large pack of cards which were not allowed in the country by customs laws,
They asked me whether I was a gambler or a poker player
and I told them that I was not and I simply cut out figures and shapes from them to use in my art
I try to just develop the work further.
Part 06
Translated by Zahra Azizi
In Dialogue with Kambiz Derambakhsh
Part 6 Characteristics of Works (1)
During the time I was working in Iran in the early years, I would
work in a few different styles depending on my audience,
one for the press and the general public and one which was very highbrow
I was made fun of because of this by a lot of Iranians, they tell me that
I really have to make up my mind about the kind of work that
I was doing. However when I went to Germany, I was told that this was positive factor, a skill
. I think that all of these works had a great deal of creativity
behind them and the diversity is what makes them interesting
When one is able to work in many ways, why not
I am a painter and I am fond of it, and you cannot be a
cartoonist if you are not a painter in the first place.
Painting and colour can’t be far from my work,
I have learned all of these and they have stayed with me
I have also done photography, film making and animation,
I have made 20 animations with my son Ramin for instance and
I have maintained a good standard with all of these works
When the book of Black miniatures was published,
I started having the content printed in Ayandegan
The work made statements and objected to the censorship
of the press that was going on at the time.
I was summoned twice for interrogations. During one of
them, one of the interrogators aske the other ‘what has he done?
‘He is trying to be Ubayd’
(meaning Ubayd Zakani the satirist poet) and my work was really in that style
There was hidden meaning in those illustrations that some
could comprehend and some could not
there was a certain symbolism, a bit similar to the
way they drew illustrations in the Soviet Union
This is the point at which I believe there must always be a
certain pressure for the Artist to produce outstanding work
if he is too comfortable he won’t be able to produce
profound work. For me all the censorship and hardship
caused my work to become popular amongst intellectuals and was different to what
I was drawing for the general public in my journalistic work; which was also quite popular
Something that I was always proud of was that my work was enjoyed by different classes of people
the taxi driver and the university professor both admired my work in their own way
Mr. Mojabi who has written an introduction to the Black Miniatures book,
has called it the ‘mirror image of our history’; because
when you study our history it is full of sadistic cruel rulers,
and these drawings portray the cruelty of those times
in the past. However with age, I have become a lot calmer in my work.
I use the whiteness in my work as a material, as an independent colour,
it gives a certain sense of beauty and minimalism to my work
It occurs and repeats in my works and it can represent the sky or the earth,
there are no boundaries and one can use the limits of the canvas
and its outer border to stretch the whiteness. When you draw
a line in the middle of a white frame,
, above the line can become the sky and below it can be the
earth. When you draw another line that can be the sea.
Black and white brings with it a nostalgic sensation. Many individuals like myself
enjoy old black and white films, for example watching
Charlie Chaplin in colour is really not pleasing
I prefer to maintain a certain decorum in my work. Through
black and white lines I convey nostalgia to my audience
Sometimes in order to sell or for my work to be more
effective, or for a decorative piece I use colours too
The main character of my work is someone like Tin Tin or Charlie Chaplin
a person that offers a kind of symbolism that embeds itself
into the mind of the viewer in the long term. For instance
Jean Jacques Sempe, or Jean- Maurice Bosc and Chaval all
have their own characters in their work.
For me French Cartoonists had always been the epitome of my ideals
I always wanted to have a special character in my drawings
and I subconsciously took inspiration from them
The people in my drawings had some similar characteristics
to all of those French ones I aspired for, the simplicity
their noses which had something of Bosc’s characters’ noses
in them. But gradually these all faded and
I accomplished a character that was completely mine, which some call Amoo (uncle) Kambiz
It has become my signature and even if I don’t sign a piece of
work, that linear person will give away that I drew that piece
This character is almost like an actor. An Actor doesn’t always play the same roles
he plays different scenarios and personalities. I write the scenarios, he is my actor,
I am the director of a film which is projected on paper instead of a cinema screen,
with the lowest of budgets, short and to the point.
For an artist or for the learned audience it is ideal to convey meaning and
narratives worth essays or books with the least words.
With a book you usually have to start from the beginning and go through to the end
spend a lot of time to reach a conclusion, whereas with an illustration you
can immediately see the intended conclusion within a matter of seconds
This is a gift that God has bestowed upon me and I love it whole heartedly,
I have put a lot of effort into it and worked hard towards it
I look after this character, these lines and I enjoy every bit of it.
This character is very close to my own personality
he is very kind and helpful to others. For my subjects I often pin down international issues
and I will try to go after the best ones till I live.
Part 07
Type Caption Text Here
In Dialogue with Kambiz Derambakhsh Part 7 Characteristics of Works (2)
It all starts from a preliminary sketch. Some of these sketches
are manifestations of an idea I already have.
To reach an idea is very significant, it accounts for 70% of the piece itself.
Some of these ideas occur to me as sparks. Some others come through sketching extensively
I reach them accidentally. Sometimes they come to me as I encounter something
and some other times I reach them by seeing works of me fellow cartoonists
After an idea is formed it is followed by sketching on detail paper;
I recently exhibited one example of these in my exhibition
Sometimes for a piece that looks quite simple to the eye you will find that
I have done 20 or 30 variations leading to the final drawing that
echoes the feeling I am after. Some other times I reach the final drawing with the first sketch
Here I have written ‘preliminary sketch’ and this is what’s been printed on the exhibition poster
and these all show the process I have gone through to reach the final
it looks as simple as a few lines but it really isn’t.
This is the final stage which I have included here
Before I work, even though it is simple; you have seen how weight lifters
go around their weights to get themselves ready before lifting
this is exactly what I do, I walk around my desk and I suddenly find the right time
Even though it looks simple but it is quite difficult because sometimes no
matter what you do, it does not come out the way you anticipate it to
So another thing I do is come back and look at the work the next day.
Because when you are soaked in the work, you don’t see the problems;
but the following day you are more able to see what you have to change
So I keep repeating it sometimes as many as 20 times to reach what I like.
I use a range of mediums and materials, sometimes I find a piece of wire on the
street and I think to myself this is something I can use so I keep it and do something with it later
For example one of my works shows a father and son thinking,
while the father’s thought bubble is filled with an oxidised
old piece of wire, while the son, forward thinking and modern has a new
and colourful piece of wire looped in his thought bubble
This piece was bought by a lady and taken to Canada for her child.
I have also used the Frame of a drawing as part of the
piece itself, or used zippers in my work
I have a bag of different zippers
When I go to buy them the shopkeeper asks me what kind of zip I want
, what colour what length and
and I tell him it doesn’t matter and they always seem baffled as to why
this man wants these zippers, it is a mystery to them
Computers can be very useful if one can implement
their ideas the way they would like using this tool,
with the colours I have in mind or the line-type that I want, for example
I tried using stylus pens a few times but it was not for me
My pen for me is like a weapon in the hands of a soldier, you have seen how
they polish and refill and service their weapons every day
and it is the same for me and my pen. I am so used to it that
I even mentioned in other interviews that
when I use this pen and the cartridge is about to go out,
I can tell by its weight without even checking the pen
The pricing of my work is quite low, but I produce a lot of work in comparison
to those artists who produce just as few as ten or twelve
I sometimes have as many as 60 pieces in an exhibition.
So if my prices are lower my work can reach more people,
because not everyone is a collector and sometimes and very often I gift my work.
This one time a person approached me and even though
he was an artist himself, he asked me if he could buy
a piece of mine in instalments,
and I said to him there was no need and that
I would gladly gift it to him, one does empathize.
Part 08
1
00:00:10,160 –> 00:00:12,077
Translated by Zahra Azizi
2
00:00:12,077 –> 00:00:15,293
In Dialogue with Kambiz Derambakhsh Part 8 Life and Art
3
00:00:26,037 –> 00:00:30,160
Interviewer: How has your art affected your lifestyle?
4
00:00:30,559 –> 00:00:40,991
My work is my life, my life is made up of cartoons, illustrations, sketches, beauty and ideas
5
00:00:40,991 –> 00:00:48,464
All these cupboards are full of ideas, if I continue to live
I have enough ideas to work with till I am 100 years old
6
00:00:48,464 –> 00:00:55,196
Reaching ideas is a difficult process, it is a problem because not everyone has ideas,
and my problem is finding the time to implement all my ideas
7
00:00:55,196 –> 00:00:59,400
A reason why I have so many exhibitions is that I want people to see these thoughts.
8
00:01:13,658 –> 00:01:28,978
The work makes me feel good, makes me young. I might
look old at the moment but a young person lives inside me
9
00:01:28,978 –> 00:01:38,679
I think young and it is a blessing to be able to think young and modern
10
00:01:38,679 –> 00:01:50,240
The work I do gives me energy and its reflection among
people especially the youth is what keeps me going
11
00:01:50,240 –> 00:02:05,080
With all this being said, you are someone who is famous, who works a lot, thinks day and night,
12
00:02:05,080 –> 00:02:18,872
but all of this does not give you back much financially
13
00:02:18,872 –> 00:02:28,934
If it did, maybe I wouldn’t work this hard because if
I was well off I wouldn’t feel the need to stretch myself
14
00:02:28,934 –> 00:02:39,280
And it is interesting that feeling the need is a determining factor in the way you work
15
00:02:57,972 –> 00:03:04,079
Interviewer: Seems that most of your work comes to life at a café, in public
16
00:03:04,079 –> 00:03:09,913
Can you explain what happens there that doesn’t in your own solitude?
17
00:03:09,913 –> 00:03:21,334
I would go to cafes since I was 14, for me it is like an office that I do not have to pay for
; and it keeps me in touch with people, people come and go.
18
00:03:21,334 –> 00:03:37,297
If you stay in a room behind closed doors nothing happens,
a lot of my work relations have formed at cafes
19
00:03:37,297 –> 00:03:47,069
Or over the 22 years that I used to live in Germany there was
a café I used to go to that I had a special spot in for myself
20
00:03:47,069 –> 00:03:54,717
the café owner had bought a few of my artworks over time and displayed them on the walls;
21
00:03:54,717 –> 00:03:59,952
he would always tell everyone about those pieces
and take pride that as the artist I was the café’s customer
22
00:03:59,952 –> 00:04:08,440
Once a large TV crew from the French channels 2 and 5
and Deutsche Welle came to the café to conduct an interview
23
00:04:08,440 –> 00:04:17,400
interview with me, and for that café owner this was huge as had I not been there
this wouldn’t have happened in his café either, many would have never even known about it
24
00:04:34,174 –> 00:04:38,793
Interviewer: Can you explain the relationship between imagination and creativity?
25
00:04:38,793 –> 00:04:48,327
Imagination is one of the ingredients of creativity. Creativity stems from the imagination
26
00:04:48,327 –> 00:05:05,496
When one is able to manifest his creative imaginations
and put them down on paper, this is a sort of Alchemy;
27
00:05:05,496 –> 00:05:22,524
you are turning a simple piece of paper to a valuable one
bearing art and suddenly it is worth 10 million dollars.
28
00:05:22,524 –> 00:05:36,600
So you create something from nothing and this is one of the definitions
of art, to create something from nothing and that is when they say someone is creative
29
00:05:49,721 –> 00:05:52,713
Interviewer: What is your opinion on the Tehran Auction?
30
00:05:52,713 –> 00:05:58,231
Art is not auction. Art is art. And auction refers to the business side of things.
31
00:05:58,231 –> 00:06:14,030
Some artists may feel that they need to take part in these auctions
to make some money but if someone only works with
32
00:06:14,030 –> 00:06:21,102
the aim of ending up in the auction that doesn’t seem sensible
33
00:06:21,102 –> 00:06:31,027
One needs to be an artist first, do good work and this will
automatically take the work forward to be part of auctions etc
34
00:06:31,027 –> 00:06:41,760
In Iran it has become such that some only work to have
their art exhibited and sold in expositions and auctions
35
00:06:41,760 –> 00:06:45,960
in Dubai for example, I don’t think this is right.
36
00:06:58,300 –> 00:07:06,264
Interviewer: how do you define your connection with other
disciplines in art such as film, music, poetry, literature?
37
00:07:06,264 –> 00:07:14,327
I am so immersed in my work and I am so fond of it that I hardly find the time to read
38
00:07:14,327 –> 00:07:21,504
Sometimes I read 2 or 3 pages and my mind bounces back into my own beautiful world.
39
00:07:21,504 –> 00:07:31,440
In reality I am a generator, an author, a poet myself; in a different way, but I am
40
00:07:31,440 –> 00:07:44,920
I also try not to be affected by or under the impression of
another artist or author and their works because I am effective myself
41
00:07:44,920 –> 00:07:59,385
I have always loved cinema however, I have always watched the best films,
I love Fellini, Pasolini, I love De Sica and Marcello,
42
00:07:59,385 –> 00:08:18,248
these films have inspired me. For example ‘Fahrenheit 451’ changed my work
, in this film a person bites on an apple which symbolises the forbidden fruit
43
00:08:18,248 –> 00:08:23,138
The forbidden fruit in these films was books
44
00:08:23,138 –> 00:08:33,929
Those who read books were arrested and their
books would be burnt, this became fruit for my work.
45
00:08:33,929 –> 00:08:45,834
Or for example the movies ‘ A Clockwork Orange’, ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’
really had a great impact on my thinking and art.
46
00:08:45,834 –> 00:08:58,370
Cinema in a way is very similar to my work, for example my
‘Visual Stories’ entails drawings which could be a short film each on their own,
47
00:08:58,370 –> 00:09:03,160
short beautiful animations that have been manifested onto paper instead of film
48
00:09:20,794 –> 00:09:39,760
In my opinion, art is reaching its end these days because they have not much more to say,
and this is why a lot of galleries in Europe have not a lot going on
49
00:09:39,760 –> 00:09:49,204
When I was in Paris, many galleries were such and only large
museums always had busy ques due to the works of great masters that they housed
50
00:09:49,204 –> 00:10:00,528
But because art has been through it all, it has reached
a point where it is becoming the starting point of something new,
51
00:10:00,528 –> 00:10:14,838
but we do not know what this new start is, it’s as if Picasso
would present his work at Leonardo Da Vinci’s time, no one would accept it
52
00:10:14,838 –> 00:10:20,086
and people would think him crazy. It would be the same now
53
00:10:20,086 –> 00:10:40,720
But the world with its new tools and capacities and
technologies is at the onset of a new beginning in art
Part 09
Translated by Zahra Azizi
In Dialogue with Kambiz Derambakhsh Part 9 About Cartoon Illustrations
Caricature in Iran originated from Turkey and France
, when magazines started being published in Iran,
they would print illustrations from foreign
magazines mostly French ones under in satirical
and humourous magazines such as
Shookhi (Joke) Khandeh (laugh) Zange Tafrih (Saved by The Bell)
Political cartoons that were usually blunt and objected to the governance
body started being published since the constitutional period,
magazines such as Mullah Nasreddin that came from
Caucasus (with an Iranian editor) were going around.
These illustrations were not of cultural impact value but they
defined the way Iranians would draw cartoons and illustrations
Rotter and Schilling, two of the most famous cartoonists at that time were German,
but because they had spent a long time in Caucasus and Tabriz they were
able to draw Iranian characters and space very well
you would think an Iranian person had drawn their work.
Therefore political subjects are one of the main reasons for the existence of cartoons,
caricatures and illustrations in Iran as a sharp means of criticism
which later on adjusts itself in Tofigh by becoming more symbolic
A vast selection would be printed in newspapers and magazines such as Tofigh,
Chelengar, Nahid, and publications by Parviz Khatibi.
I always wanted my work to be international so I always tried
to keep my work in style with foreign illustrations
So my work was always different and this difference can still be spotted
up to this day. I tried to draw a character that symbolizes a human being anywhere in the world
that stands for human characteristics and stay void of any geographical ties
for example Amoo Norouz is well known in Iran but not in
other places in the world but Santa is known all over the world;
part of it is because the English and French language are international
whereas Persian literature does not reach very far in the world even
when translated and albeit very rich in content so it stays foreign to the international world,
however our visual arts are much more well known,
Our miniature for instance; and this is why I think visually and I work visually.
I speak without words through my work.
Unfortunately, we have a lot of talent in the field
in Iran but not much support, the press usually
does not welcome cartoonists because of political issues and so
editors are reluctant to use the work of illustrators as much as they usually would
Our press hardly uses the first editorial page for cartoons because of these
considerations and so we don’t really have cartoonist journalists because
they are not able to produce work relevant to the subject;
sometimes due to self-censorship, or being limited by the editors in chief.
Also pays are very low, as low as 50 thousand tomans for
a whole page in Hamshahri Narratives.
Interviewer: Where do Iranian Contemporary Cartoon Illustrations stand in the world?
The society of cartoonists, the biennales which have been
held in Tehran in the past few years and the good awards and
publications which have reached out to the world have really
been effective in introducing the artists of the field internationally
At the house of humour and Satire in Gabrovo Bulgaria,
where there is held the works of Federico Fellini, Charlie Chaplin and myself and
other great artists from all over the world, I once had an
exhibition of my works (all the while having won an award)
and tourists would come in buses to see the House and
would see my exhibition. People would tell me that they did not expect Iran to have cartoonists
It was the time that I was working for Nebelspalter, with very good quality and colourful pieces;
it is worth noting that I was the first cartoonist to introduce
Iran in the field to the world with the style of drawing
that I established and have carried on up to this date
Before any of the biennales happened in Iran I had won many significant
awards abroad and so they knew Iran had a cartoonist and they still know me very well,
not just in The west but I am also known elsewhere, I receive
letters from Cuba, India, China, etc. and it is very interesting to myself.
We don’t have a major for teaching caricatures or cartoon illustrations at university
Some hold courses and some do it at the house of Cartoonists,
but in my opinion this is not something you can teach;
it is like attempting to teach someone to become a poet or a composer, you can teach
a person music notes but you cannot teach them to become a music composer
these are skills that exist in some people inherently and naturally.
Things that are taught, can be found in any library.
Coming up with ideas is not something you can teach
Cartoon art before anything is an art of protest, it is also social;
the cartoonist sees problems in society that others don’t and pins these issues down
he somehow acts as a social psychologist and analyses the issues
that people have and provides an alarm for people and those in charge through
the means of illustration, which act as doctors who
diagnose but cannot prescribe the medication for it.
You cannot tell someone they are dying in a humorous way but
you can tell the how to look after themselves and what to avoid
The cartoonist tries to convey his bitter messages in a non-
painful manner. A bitter poison that is accompanied with a sugar cube.