Starting his career as a painter, Bahman Mohassess (Iran, 1931-Rome, 2010) also produced many sculptures – some of them monumental – , most of which were destroyed or vanished after the revolution. He carried on travelling around Iran—and even lived there between 1964 and 1968 – until the early1970s, before settling for good in Rome. His œuvre, which attests to a refined, tormented and mysterious spirit, incarnating a modernity tending towards extremely daring experiments, made Mohassess an almost mythical figure in 20th century Iranian art. He is also known for his literary translations (Italo Calvino) and his translations of plays (Jean Genet, Eugène Ionesco), which he occasionally put on in Tehran.