BIOGRAPHY

Shahrokh Rezvani, an internationally known artist, has achieved substantial recognition and reputation as an artist and as a painter-printmaker. He attended Ball State University in Indiana from 1965 to 1972, where he received his BS and MA degrees in printmaking. He was awarded an art grant in 1967 and graduate assistantships in 1970 and 1972. He then attended Wayne State University in Michigan, where he was awarded a teaching fellowship and received his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1974. While at Wayne State University, he also studied various Cliché-Verre processes, a medium, which allows magnificent textural variations.

Although his area of concentration was multi-plate color viscosity intaglio and monotypes, which he has mastered beyond belief, he was very much intrigued by the potentials of the medium of Cliché-Verre. He continues to be a main force and one of the frontrunners in reestablishing Cliché-Verre, an art form that has been obscure for the last 160 years. He is known for his mastery of this process. It is therefore that in 1980, he was selected as one of the twenty-five artists from the 20th century to exhibit in the most comprehensive and prestigious exhibition up to that date about Cliché-Verre titled, "Cliché-Verre: Hand Drawn, Light-Printed, a Survey of the Medium from 1839 to the Present." The exhibition began at the Detroit Institute of Arts (Michigan) in 1980 and traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas. The exhibition was the product of two years of extensive international research and included works, among others, by Picasso, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Man Ray, Millet, Daubigny, Corot, and Delacriox. As a result, in 1990, Rezvani was included in the International exhibition of the Twentieth Century Cliché-Verre held at Galerie Shimofusaya, Chiba-shi, Chiba-ken in Japan.

Back in 1974, he was asked to participate in the "Exposition International Des Arts De Tehran" with the major European and internationally known artists. Later in 1975, he was invited to participate in a solo exhibition of his works alongside the world-renown artist Louise Nevelson. The exhibition was held at the Exhibition Halls of the Iran American Cultural Center in Tehran, Iran. The same year, the Persian Minister of Art, Mehrdad Pahlboud, commissioned Rezvani to set up the first elaborate printmaking workshop at the College of Decorative Arts. Later in 1976, he prepared at the request of the Office of the Queen Farah Pahlavi, the proposal to set up a second printmaking workshop in conjunction with the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. However, in July 1976, after one and a half years of professorship at Farabi University and the College of Decorative Arts, and at the request of the Office of Queen Farah Pahlavi, he departed with other selected artists for Basel, Switzerland to exhibit at the Basel International Art Fair. Later that summer, he returned to the U.S. and to Scottsdale, Arizona, in order to establish the Rezvani Workshop in December 1977, where he collaborated in the creation of monotypes and prints by internationally known artists-among them, Dale Chihuly, Paul Jenkins, Fritz Scholder, and James Havard. Since 1994 he has limited his collaborations considerably in order to further his own career.

In 1978, Rezvani was one of twenty artists selected by the Phoenix Art Museum for their traveling exhibition, "20 Arizona Artists," which began at the Phoenix Art Museum and toured through 1980. In 1988, he was one of three artists from the state of Arizona selected by the Arizona Commission on the Arts for a solo traveling exhibition sponsored by the commission. The solo exhibition was on tour from 1987 to 1989. Rezvani was also one of the five finalists from the state of Arizona nominated in 1988 for the Arizona Arts Award by the Tucson Community Foundation. He has been included in the prestigious publication "Who's Who in International Art," Lausann, Switzerland since 1987 and in March 1998, was included in the famed "Dictionary of International Biography" in Cambridge, England.

In April 1998, Rezv" in Geneva, Switzerland. The featured artist was Picasso (1930's works on paper.) While in France; in May 1998, he painted a new series of paintings at the "Dadkhah-Rezvani Studio." During this period, two of Rezvani's works of art were selected for the permanent collection of the world renowned BibliothÈque Nationale De France in Paris, France. BibliothÈque Nationale De France is known for its superb collection of ancient books, manuscripts, and works of art from various centuries.

Rezvani has been a guest artist, and has presented many workshops and lecture demonstrations at various institutions. Among them are: The Tucson Museum of Art, the Scottsdale Center for the Arts (Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Arts), the Tamarind Institute at the University of New Mexico, the Arizona State University Art Department, and the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute.

His work is represented in many collections-among them: The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan; BibliothÈque Nationale De France, Paris, France; California Palace of Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona; Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona; and Scottsdale Center for the Arts (Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Arts), Scottsdale, Arizona.
Presently, Rezvani is involved in the creation of a series of elaborate mixed media works on hand-constructed (painted sculptural reliefs) paper paintings on silver gelatin and color photographs, as well as sculptural painting on models.

SHAHROKH RAZVANI
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