Jalal Shabahangi (1935–2023) was an Iranian painter, graphic designer, sculptor, glass artist, and university professor, and one of the prominent figures of contemporary Iranian visual art. For more than three decades, he taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Tehran and became particularly known for his distinctive landscape paintings, especially his poetic representations of plains and desert environments.

Alongside painting and graphic design, Shabahangi worked extensively with glass, producing blown-glass sculptures in Iran as well as in Murano, Italy. His experience with glass appears to have influenced the distinctive qualities of transparency, luminosity, and fluidity found in his paintings.

His landscapes are rarely tied to a specific geographical location, yet they strongly evoke the deserts, rolling plains, distant trees, and open spaces of Iran. Silence, vastness, tranquility, transparency, light, and color are recurring characteristics of his visual language. The motifs of the garden, plain, and tree also appear repeatedly throughout his work.

Shabahangi died on 17 August 2023, after a period of illness.

Education

Shabahangi pursued his higher education in the United States at San José State University in California.

His academic studies included:

• A bachelor’s degree in graphic advertising
• A master’s degree in graphic design
• Graduate studies in contemporary painting

He completed his graduate studies in design and graphic arts in 1967 and subsequently returned to Iran, where he began a long academic career.

Activities and Works

In 1968, Shabahangi joined the faculty of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Tehran, where he taught for more than three decades before retiring in 2002. He served at different stages of his career as an associate professor and professor.

In addition to the University of Tehran, he taught at several other Iranian institutions, including Shahed University, Alzahra University, Soore University, and Shariati College.

Shabahangi also served on the Graduate Studies Council of the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Tehran and represented the university in art-related curriculum and planning activities conducted by Iran’s Ministry of Science, Research and Technology. He was also a full member of the Iranian Academy of Arts.

His artistic and professional activities encompassed a broad range of fields, including:

• Painting
• Graphic design
• Sculpture
• Three-dimensional design
• Glass art and glassblowing
• Art education
• Writing and translation

Shabahangi is particularly associated with his distinctive landscapes of plains and deserts. His paintings often employ broad, carefully structured forms, subtle relationships between positive and negative space, and balanced vertical and horizontal elements. Through a highly controlled use of light and color, he created quiet, poetic, and contemplative environments.

He was also active in glassblowing, producing a distinctive body of sculptural glass works in Iran and in Murano, Italy. His experience with glass contributed to the sense of transparency, fluidity, and luminosity that became characteristic of much of his painting.

Among his published books are:

• Principles of Three-Dimensional Design
• Creativity in Color
• Paintings of Jalal Shabahangi

Shabahangi held his first exhibition in 1970 at the University of California, Berkeley, followed by another exhibition in 1972 at Qandriz Gallery in Tehran. His work was subsequently shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Iran and abroad.

Institutions and venues that exhibited his work included San José State University, West Valley College in California, the Triton Museum of Art, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Qandriz Gallery, Seyhoun Gallery, Golestan Gallery, Zarvan Gallery, Sabz Gallery, Lito Gallery, Niavaran Cultural Center, Bahman Cultural Center, the Riyadh Cultural Center, and Boushahri Gallery in Kuwait.

Achievements and Awards

Jalal Shabahangi played an important role in the development and teaching of contemporary painting and graphic design in Iran. Through more than three decades of university teaching, he influenced several generations of Iranian artists and designers.

In 2001, he was honored during the Seventh Iranian Graphic Design Biennial, in an event organized with the involvement of the prominent graphic designer Morteza Momayez.

On 31 December 2018, the Iranian Academy of Arts held a retrospective exhibition and a special ceremony honoring more than half a century of Shabahangi’s artistic and educational activities.

His full membership in the Iranian Academy of Arts, long academic career at the University of Tehran, extensive record of national and international exhibitions, and development of a distinctive visual language in landscape painting and glass art constitute some of the most significant achievements of his career.

Morteza Momayez regarded Shabahangi’s paintings as an important bridge between traditional approaches to nature and the modern visual language of contemporary art, allowing Iranian viewers to enter modern pictorial space without a sense of cultural alienation. Painter and critic Aydin Aghdashloo likewise described Shabahangi as an important part of the body of contemporary Iranian art and emphasized his modesty, integrity, productivity, and lifelong dedication to artistic practice.