Africa & Middle East > Iran > Tehran > Tehran > Articles > The Mural-Painters of Tehran

Even if you've never been to Tehran and are indifferent to public art, there's a good chance that you're familiar with the work of Taghi Hosseini, painter, war veteran, devout Muslim and, as he tells it, grateful recipient of divine providence — a man saved by the hand of Allah to paint the faces of his country’s heroes.

As one half of the Al-ghadir mural company, a six man operation in the smog-choked southern suburbs of Tehran, Hosseini is responsible for many of the monstrously large murals that cover the sides of office blocks throughout the city. You name it, he's painted it, from billboards proclaiming the fiery demise of the Great Satan (America), to 200sqm portraits of the Ayotollah Khomeini, canvases so big the nostril alone is the size of a bar fridge. Indeed, as mural painters in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Taghi Hosseini and his partner, Mohammed Hosseini (no relation), would have to be among the most generously exhibited, if not the best paid, artists in the world. Though just one of many such businesses in this swirling city of 12 million people, Al-ghadir is highly regarded, their work sought after by the government and private clients alike.

Not that you'd know it. At 34, Taghi is a modest man. He is small and dumpy and speaks in a high pitched voice, his chubby, boy-like hands cupped shyly in his lap. He is physically unremarkable, save for a small scar on his head, a thin strip of liverish skin just under the hairline, the result of car accident three years ago.

Taghi’s story, however, is anything but unremarkable. Before he was a painter he was a soldier, fighting in the Iran-Iraq War, all of which explains how he got into murals to begin with.

"I was 18, and in charge of an anti-aircraft battery in the south of Iran. One night, just six months from the end of the war [in 1988], I had the strangest dream. I was sitting at the bottom of a deep well, looking up. Around me was total blackness, but at the top of the well I could see thick clouds passing by, as if blown by a brisk wind.

"The next day we woke up and manned our positions. Then suddenly a squadron of 16 Iraqi MiGs attacked. They came in very low and fast, and caught us off guard. They were dropping what we thought were explosives but turned out to be chemical bombs. I remember looking at the men in the nearby trenches, who were falling down. Even the soldiers with me, they died, but somehow I survived. I didn't even receive any wounds. Back in Tehran after the war, all I had to do was take some vitamins, vitamin D and A, and I was fine."

He attributes his survival to a miracle. "The dream was a sign. I was saved by God. I was saved by God to paint pictures of those who didn't come back."

After leaving the army, Taghi worked for a year in his uncle’s sign writing business. While he hadn’t studied art at school, he says he had always been interested in painting. The war, however, left no time for such things. At his uncle’s, finally, he had a chance to learn the basics of perspective and proportion, eventually showing enough aptitude to go out on his own in 1990. His first jobs were small advertisements for friends. More and more, however, he moved into doing portraits, not so much for the money, but for the practice. “My first jobs were tiny, portraits of comrades of mine whose families would come to me and ask me to do it. I got paid almost nothing for them.”

Slowly, painstakingly, he built up the business. After a time he found himself doing larger, more complex murals, at which point he employed Mohammed. “People hear about you through word of mouth. Business in Iran is a grass roots thing, at least to begin with.”

After three years Al-ghadir got its first big government job, a contract to paint the face of a “martyr” — one of the country’s casualties in the war with Iraq — on a factory wall in south Tehran. (With some 70 percent of industry in Iran still government owned, the state has long since regarded factory walls as giant propaganda canvases.)

Because of his experiences in the war, Taghi views his work more as a patriotic duty than a commercial venture. So does Mohammed. Still, everybody has to earn a living, so the two men have split the business into separate arms. One section is commercial, the other is cultural.

"The commercial commissions come from private clients," says Taghi. "Factories, trade people, anyone who wants an advertisement painted."

The cultural commissions, meanwhile, come mainly from the Shahid (Martyrs' Foundation), a government funded authority charged with protecting the memory of the more than 500,000 Iranians who died in the eight year war with Iraq. (Taghi claims he does not paint portraits of Palestinian suicide bombers.) Other jobs, such as anti-US slogans and portraits of religious leaders, come from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite wing of the military entrusted with enforcing the government’s Islamic codes of conduct and morality.

The cultural jobs net them just 30,000 rials (AUD $6.30) per square metre, substantially less than they get for the commercial work (50,000 rials, or AUD $10.50) per square metre.

Money, however, is not the point. "Sometimes we'll paint a portrait for free, if the family of a martyr wants us to do it. They've given their son or brother or father for their country and their religion. Painting one of their family members is the least we can do."

But with some half a million martyrs from the war with Iraq, how do they choose who to paint? "You can't paint them all," says Taghi. "There aren't enough walls. So you choose the special ones, the commanders, the ones who did extraordinary missions. "Anyway, in most cases the Martyrs' Foundation will come in and give us the name of the martyr, and a photo to work off."

Popping next door to the workshop, Taghi shows me some of these photos, crinkled black and whites of bearded young men in freshly pressed fatigues. Using an overhead projector, the images are cast across the room onto an oversized canvas, upon which Taghi and his four man team trace the key features; nose, mouth, eyebrows and ears, the line of the jaw and curve of the smile. Capturing the essence of the face is crucial, says Taghi, who claims a certain pride in what he sees as the artistic component of his work, particularly the portraiture.

“Every face is a challenge,” he explains. "If you make a mistake in a general landscape, no-one can really tell, and no-one really cares. It's not a personal thing. But with portraits, it must be the same or people will know. At the very least the martyr's relatives will spot the difference, and in the case of someone like the Ayatollah Khomeini, everyone will spot the difference. That's why portraits are so difficult."

Apart from himself and Mohammed, Taghi now employs four staff. He says that five men working full time can finish a 150sqm mural in just four days. “It’s a highly coordinated effort,” he explains, “with everybody synchronising their work around everybody else. One man paints the martyr’s face, another does the stars, another the clouds in the background, yet another would work on the calligraphy, while someone else does any details, like, say, if a gun or flowers have to be added.”

"Taghi is a genius!" says Mohammed. "Come, Mohammed," says Taghi, somewhat embarrassed. "You know, Mohammed worked in propaganda during the war, so he really knows how to organise things.” According to Taghi, Mohammed is more of an “office person”: a “good coordinator” and “a good thinker”; he keeps the business running smooth, says Taghi. “He is in the office, I am in the studio.”

"When we first started," adds Mohammed, "there were very few people [painting murals], maybe 10 companies. Now they are as numerous as the hairs on your head. But," he adds, with an air of disgust, "there are some real amateurs out there."

Luckily, there is enough work to go round for everyone, especially at the moment. (Though Taghi would not admit it, demand for murals is always strongest in times of crisis. As an Iranian friend told me, “these paintings are just populism, a distraction. Whenever there is a government scandal or the economy is bad or there is a war coming, you suddenly see lots more murals popping up around the place.”)

When I ask what work they are most proud of, Mohammed hauls out a catalogue fat with photos and clippings. “Portraits of the Ayatollah Khomeini,” says Taghi, nodding firmly. “He was a very kind person.”

One of the oddest things about Taghi is the way in which he regards himself as essentially non-political, despite the nature of his work. Like most Iranians, he resents the US administration for its support of Israel, but he claims he has nothing against the American people. Similarly, he sees his portraits of Khomeini — the very essence of anti-westernism — as devotional rather than political.

“If you read the diaries of Ayatollah Khomeini you will find out that he was a very kind person,” says Taghi. “He was a very grandfatherly, and he always careful listened to everyone, even though he was very busy. He was very sympathetic.”

When I ask then why Ayatollah Khomeini always seems to be scowling, both men look confused, and slightly hurt. "People with a special mission in life don't sit there and make faces," says Taghi. "Anyway, Khomeini was a very sweet man."

Excusing himself, Taghi then rushes into the next room. There is the sound of drawers opening and shutting and papers rustling, and I can hear Taghi muttering to himself. He is gone for some time, but just as I am getting ready to leave, he re-emerges brandishing a photo of a portrait of Khomeini.

"You see!" says Taghi, pointing at what appears to be a grin on the Ayatollah's lips. "He was not always so serious. You just think that because of what you have been told. But it is not true. "I hope you will see now," he says. "Many lies have been told about Iran. But we are not at all like you think."

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