Abbas Gharib was born in Tehran in 1942. At the age of twenty, he emigrated to Italy and later pursued his studies in urban planning at the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia (IUAV) in Venice. From the 1970s through the early 2000s, he received numerous awards in the fields of urban planning, architecture, and interior design.

Gharib first drew attention by winning the National Insurance Company competition in Iran. He went on to work on the Iranian Parliament project and gained further acclaim with his award-winning design for the "Sun and Habitat" project—conceived in 1979 in Italy to promote the use of alternative energy sources in residential buildings.

In the early 1970s, he founded Studio Gharib in Italy, through which he collaborated with diverse figures and ventured into a wide range of disciplines, striving to transcend imposed boundaries and the constraints of traditional professional practices. His work in the visual arts has also spanned multiple media, including photography, painting, and calligraphy.