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Akbar Behkalam was an Iranian-German painter and sculptor. He was born on the 16th of September 1944 in Tabriz, Iran.
Akbar was the winner of the Tashkent Biennial in Uzbekistan in 2009.
Early and Career
The Iranian capital East Azerbaijan Province, Tabriz, is where Akbar Behkalam was born in 1944. He was an art student at the Tabriz Academy of Arts from 1961 until 1964. He traveled to Istanbul after serving in the Iranian Kurdistan military, where he studied fine arts at Mimar Sinan University as a master’s student under Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu.
Akbar lived in Paris, Frankfurt, Rome, and Berlin between 1972 and 1974. He returned to Iran in 1974 to teach at the Tabriz Art School, but left the country for political reasons in 1976 and settled in Berlin. He had a studio in Brandenburg by 1989 and published Movement and Change: Paintings and Sketches 1977–1988 that same year.
He contrasts images of the Shah regime’s execution squads with ancient Persian iconography in his Persepolis (1977–1979) series. He developed the television show Justice in Allah’s Name in the 1980s, which focuses on human rights abuses committed by the Islamic Republic’s religious leadership.
Behkalam developed the work cycle Justice in Allah’s Name in the 1980s, concentrating on abuses of human rights during the Islamic Republic. He investigated the German Revolution of 1848 between 1984 and 1986, creating a number of expansive paintings that were included in his first significant solo exhibition at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin in 1986.
His artwork can be found in a number of public areas throughout Berlin, including monuments and murals. Notably, he created the Hardenbergstrasse memorial for Cemal Kemal Altun.
Was Akbar Behkalam Married?
Akbar Behkalam was married to a German woman and get had two children. The name of his wife is unknown.
What was Akbar Behkalam’s Cause of death?
Anbar died on 7th February, 2025 at the age of 80. He died in Berlin, Germany. However, the cause of his death is unknown.
