Talieh Kamran is an Iranian painter, writer and poet. Kamran is known for her abstract-figurative paintings. She is also known to musicians as the "mother of old Iranian Santoor playing". Her interest in art was built in the family from the very first years of her life. Talieh's father was a violinist and his mother was also a painter. She learned to play the Santoor from Habibullah Samaei and took painting seriously from her adolescence. After a period of copying some of the most important works in the history of art, she participated in Shokouh Riazi’s free painting course, who was one of the graduates of Beaux-Arts de Paris. That was the prologue to shape her personal Art. Kamran participated in the third Tehran Biennial with Folk images inspired by tombstones, such as horses, swords, rosaries, and so on.
Kamran graduated with a degree in painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Tehran. She held her first exhibition in 1968 at the hall of the Faculty of Fine Arts. This collection included a variety of experiences in Design, ink figures, abstract paintings, figurative paintings of pigeons and women in chadors, and a series of abstract paintings with colored inks. These works attracted the attention of professors and modernist students because of their distance from academic teaching.
Between this exhibition and the second one, which was held in Seyhoun Gallery in 1971, her works became more distinctive and a kind of expressive and feminine expression appeared in them. The background of most of her paintings is dark and black, and the space is interspersed using spider webs drawn with sharp and angled lines, and includes elements such as dead fish and owls. Another series of her works in this exhibition had a more optimistic atmosphere. Pigeon-themed paintings with bright and shiny machine colors. In the next periods, Kamran expanded the atmosphere and created works that were considered to be Pop art tolerant. These works were exhibited in 1974. Kamran says about this period of her works: "the exhibition of new works in 1974was clearly different from previous ones. The works had larger dimensions and a wider space. Women were more active and tangible in my work. Some attributed this to pop art Perhaps because of the visual connection of these works with the common graphic design of the day.”
In the four years after this exhibition, there was a further change in Kamran's paintings. Dark background colors were replaced by white, and women, apples, and birds became the main themes of her work. Geometric expression was gradually consolidated in her works and became more explicit in the form of horizontal, vertical lines, circles and squares. After the display of these works in 1978, the presence of Kamran's profession in painting was interrupted. Nearly two decades later, in 1996, Kamran once again exhibited her collection of paintings. Owls and machines were the subject of this series of works. Ruyin Pakbaz writes about the characteristics of Talieh Kamran's paintings: "Her main motifs are woman, bird, tree and fish, which often appear in combination with circles, stripes and squares. She basically uses black, white and gray and sometimes adds lemon yellow, red and blue colors to them. "In the precise execution of the design, the simplification of the shapes and the application of the flat colored surfaces give her work a graphic character."
Talieh Kamran's paintings - along with the works of figures such as Mehrnoosh Shariatpanahi and Leyly Matin-daftari - open a new horizon into the lives of Iranian women artists.
Talieh Kamran's first appearance in auctions dates back to January 2018 at the Tehran Auction House. Until January 2021, her works had appeared in 4 domestic and foreign auctions, and 100% of her works had been sold at international auctions. Her most expensive work until 2021 at the Tehran auction was hammered for $ 72,000 on January 17, 2017.