Open Letter

Open Letter, is a major example of the theme of calligraphy and script relating to Afnan’s Iranian heritage, which is a significant aspect of her art. It also connects to modernist works by European and American artists such as Twombly and Michaux, both represented in the collection. The Courtauld’s Professor Sussan Babaie writes of this drawing:

Paper was enormously important to her way of working as is visible in the ‘Open Letter’. The sensitivity toward the textures, the malleability or stiffness of paper, and the potential for absorption or bleeding of ink on paper seem to have guided her on her way to the subject of her work. As if waiting for the paper and ink out of the nib of her pen to discuss the matter, she saw and followed the latent potentialities of her materials. The text is there not to impart a specific meaning but to evoke a sense of knowing, a conversation which need not be spelled out. She was a master of her materials and the inherent emotionality of the subject matter that is not articulated in precise terms.

Gift of the artist's estate

Maliheh Afnan, Faces, Traces and Places, exhibition catalogue, Rose Issa Projects, London, 2009