Nahid Hagigat

Artist Biography

Nahid Hagigat, born in Tehran, Iran in 1943, is a pioneering artist whose work bridges Iranian and Western art.  After graduating in Fine Arts from Tehran University, Hagigat continued her studies in the United States at New York University in the early 1970s.. As she pursued her Ph.D. from New York University in Art, she often exhibited her etchings and photo etchings in Tehran and was instrumental in introducing printmaking to the Iranian art scene.  In 2013, Hagigat was included in the seminal show Iran Modern, at the Asia Society in New York and recently in LACMA’s Women Defining Women In Contemporary Art of the Middle East and Beyond, in 2023. Her work is in numerous private and public collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The British Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, JP Morgan-Chase, New York University, and World Bank in Washington, D.C.

Artist Statement

I started my professional career during the 1970s in New York. During this time, I created a series of etchings and photo-etchings depicting Iranian women and children, among other subjects. In these series, I portrayed figures showing power and resistance. Sometimes, the main figure is repeated many times, each representing a different stage of being. During the 1980s and beyond, I shifted to a different subject matter, creating paintings on canvas influenced by nature, such as dry leaves of palm trees and bare branches. I explored the intensity and force of branches against light, expressing complexity, music, synchronization, harmony, and grace.

In 2015, I began printing my etching plates from the 1970s era in only black color and decided to paint on them with colors. I call this series “hand-painted etchings.” I selected four plates mainly focusing on the subject of women. Choosing these specific plates, my goal is not to depict a “victim,” but rather a woman for whom strength and
passion for life surpasses her entanglement with oppression. The women in my etchings embrace aliveness and a willingness to thrive as they achieve their next level of greatness. Flowers are powerful symbols of resistance and that is why my “women” are showered with
them. Flowers symbolize beauty, innocence, power, purity, peace, fertility, divinity, eternity, and love. Some are delicate, some are rough, some are short-lived, some are long, but all in their unique ways radiate an irreplaceable energy. As with my “women,” they each have
their own story to tell. Every print has been transformed and has taken on a new life and momentum of its own.