Gallery of Iman Maleki AND Morteza Katouzian

Iman was born on 1976 in Tehran. He has been fascinated by the art of Painting since he was a child. At the age of 15, he started to learn painting under the mastery of his first and only teacher - Morteza Katouzian - who is the greatest realist painter of Iran. Meanwhile, he began to paint professionally. In 1999 he graduated in Graphic Design from the Art University of Tehran. Since 1998, he has participated in several exhibitions. In the year 2000, he got married and in the following year he established ARA Painting Studio and started to teach painting, considering classical and traditional values.
The most important exhibitions he has participated in, are: The Exhibition of Realist painters of Iran at Tehran Contemporary Museum of Art(1999) and The Group Exhibition of KARA Studio Painters at SABZ Gallery(1998) and at SA'AD ABAD Palace(2003). In 2005, Iman received the William Bouguereau award and the Chairman's Choice award in the second international ARC salon competition.

Morteza Katouzian was born in 1322 A.H. into a middle-class Teheran family. Tragically, Katouzian lost his father at the age of seven, leaving him in the care of his mother and elder brother, at the time a second-year law student. With no formal training, special tools or encouragement outside of the constant support of his family, Katouzian passed his free time sketching and painting, slowly honing his talent in solitude.

"When I took my paintings to school, the instructors would refuse to believe they were my original works," Katouzian joked recently. In 1341 A.H., he began work at a local painting workshop, eventually emerging as one of the unique talents in the contemporary school of Iranian art. Discussing the role of the artist in the modern world, Katouzian remarks, "I could never stop painting; my heart is like a mirror, reflecting the reality of the surrounding world."