On the 75th Anniversary of the Endowment of Malek National Library and Museum

November 20, 2011 11:15 AM - Printable Version

The Permanent Exhibition of the Works of Ghaffari Family and Kamal-ol-Molk opens

A permanent Exhibition to display the paintings of Kamal-ol-Molk and Ghaffari family at the ground floor of Malek National Library and Museum
On Wednesday, November 2, the 75th anniversary of the Endowment of Malek National Library and Museum.
According to the public relations office of Malek National Library and Museum, at the opening ceremony of the exhibition titled "Survey of the Works of Kamal-ol-Molk" , Syed Mojtaba Hosseini, managing director of the Malek Institute and ali Dehbashi literary and art scholar delivered speeches.
After the screening of a short film on the life of Haj Hossein Malek, and the remarks of Kamran Maleki the program manager, Hosseini began his speech with the recitation of a couplet on the endower of the Malek complex. He pointed out that the occasion for the ceremony was the 75th anniversary of the endowment of the art-cultural collection and said: "The collection ha
s been endowed to Astan-e Qods Razavi with the objective of promoting art and culture and for the purpose of preserving the collection from the vicissitudes of time."
He continued: "Other programs have also been envisaged for the occasion, and perhaps the most important of these programs is the exhibition of works from the Ghaffari family which had been on the agenda of the institute since May 2010. As a first step research activities were conducted and necessary data were gathered and then coordination was effected through contact with various museums. This led to a measure which is unprecedented or rare in the area of inter-museums operations, and here I would like to thank the authorities in the museums for their cooperation and assistance."
The managing director of the Malek National Library and Museum added: "The next step was the documentation of the collection which was carried out by my colleagues, especially my artist friend Omid Mohkami who devoted a great deal of time and energy to the task from September 2010 to February 2011. Concurrently a great deal of articles and historical information on the subject were collected and a website was constructed and became operational on the world day of museums, May 18, 2010 . The website is a virtual permanent exhibition of the works of Kamal-ol-Molk and presents a data bank on the artist.
"After the opening of the website we reached the conclusion that in view of the relative extent of Kamal-ol-Molk's works and the special features of this great artist we had to devote a hall in the museum to his works. At the same time Kamal-ol-Molk exhibition presented a suitable occasion for dealing with the artistic family of Ghaffari which had a prominent position in the artistic field from the Safavid era to the time of the Qajar dynasty. Perhaps later it will be possible to consider other families who played very effective roles in the promotion of art and culture in our country.
"For instance, we should pay attention to Vassal family in Shiraz, and Emami family in Isfahan who played a great role in the domain of art, while there were other families that presented valuable services in the realm of knowledge and culture, such as Dashtaki family in Shiraz that had effective roles in the field of philosophy."
Concerning the opening of the permanent exhibition on Ghaffari family and Kamal-ol-Molk, Hosseini explained: "We had planned to open the gallery concurrently with the virtual exhibition on the world day of museums, but the need to repair some of the construction defects in the building in a basic and methodical manner postponed the job until now. During the period we decided to act on the suggestion of master artist Aideen Aghdashloo and prepared artistic photographs of the works of Kamal-ol-Molk available in various museums and presented them in a single exhibition so that art students and scholars could view all the works of the great artist in one place, and that is how the exhibition `Survey of the Works of Kamal-ol-Molk' was mounted in Malek Gallery."
Pointing to the discovery of the negative plates of photos of Kamal-ol-Molk and his students by Hassan Hamedi, manager of Tandis magazine in the house of Abolhassan Khan Sediqi, Hosseini said: "My cultured friend Hamedi borrowed the negatives from the family of the late Sediqi to be displayed for the first time at Malek National Library and Museum, so that we could go over pages from our history of art and culture."
Hosseini also said: "Our organizational relationship with the issue of museum management enabled us to undertaken a very urgent task which had hitherto been ignored. With the cooperation of the Iranian Committee of National Museums we arranged a competition of the best museum guide 40 days ago. After the announcement of the competition 48 people entered the competition. The volunteers were evaluated by juries in two stages and 8 people were nominated. In the final stage 3 people were selected as the best guides who will receive their prizes today."
He emphasized: "With the continuation of the program of promoting the qualitative promotion of the museum guides and assuming that we will have the chance to cooperate with other institutes responsible for museum management, we can hope to witness a progress toward the ideal situation in the area of museum guidance."
After the speech by the managing director of the institute, a video-clip of the stages of the creation of Kamal-ol-Molk statue, and permanent exhibition of the Ghaffari family and Kamal-0l-Molk was screened, and then the manager of the ceremony thanked Astan-e Qods Razavi, the board of directors of Malek National Library and Museum, the sculptor of Kamal-ol-Molk statue Ramin Ghaffari, the designer and executor of the interior architecture of the permanent exhibition Dr. Behzad Soleimani, the producers and arrangers of the exhibition content scheme Reza Dabiri-Nezhad, Mohammad Hekmat and Fatemeh Razipour, as well as the designer of Kamal-ol-Molk exhibition website Hamid Reza Pournasiri.
In continuation, Maleki read the statement of the jury of the competition of "Best Museum Guides". According to the jury statement, the competition was arranged with the objective of upgrading the knowledge and methods of museum guides who are the human link between the museum and the visitors. The jury announced that creativity, method of narration and establishing relation with children and young adults as the principal criteria of evaluation, and they awarded diplomas of honor to Meisam Abdoli the guide at Malek National Museum, and the specialist narration and richness of scientific knowledge of Damon Monzivi.
Then a video-clip on the stages of evaluation was screened.
The ceremony of the anniversary of endowment of Malek National Library and Museum continued with the presentation of prizes to the winners of the competition. Maleki invited Keikhosro Khoroush to present the third prize to Zhila Moqim-Nezhad the guide at Golestan Palace Museum, the graphic artist Ebrahim Haqiqi to present the second prize to Mohammad Nowrouzi and engineer Qasemi head of Malek endowment organization to present the first prize to the group of guides at the museum of history represented by Hassan Ashraf Eslami.
After the prize presentation Mohammad Nowrouzi demonstrated his method of work at the request of the audience.
The ceremony continued with the speech by Ali Dehbashi, the scholar and author of the books "in Memory of Kamal-ol-Molk" and "Kamal-ol-Molk Letters" . Dehbashi, the editor-in-chief of the quarterly Bokhara, emphasizing the point that the secret of the durability of the Iranian nation is their art and culture and not the kings and mighty rulers, said: "The book `In Memory of Kamal-ol-Molk' includes articles on Kamal-ol-Molk by three generations of writers and they all emphasized not only Kamal-ol-Molk's artistic excellence but also his love of Iran and his commitment to the art and culture of this country."
He then read a letter by Kamal-ol-Molk which included information on the Ghaffari family and his relatives.
After Dehbashi's speech parts of the film "Kamal-ol-Molk" directed by Ali Hatami was screened and then the ceremony manager thanked authorities of Golestan Museum which possesses the greatest number of works by Kamal-ol-Molk, and asked the audience to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony of the permanent exhibition of Ghaffari family and Kamal-ol-Molk , stationed at a space behind the museum of coins.
The ribbon cutting and opening of the permanent exhibition, which has been designed according to the standards of the day, was done by Esfandiar Ahmadieh father of the Iranian animation and Mehdi-Nezhad chairman of the board of directors of Malek endowments.
The exhibition of Ghaffari family and Kamal-ol-Molk displays a collection of paintings by members of Ghaffari family from the Safavid time to the Qajar era, nine paintings by Kamal-ol-Molk, the statue of Kamal-ol-Molk, photographs printed from the negative plates of Kamal-ol-Molk and his students. Two displayer machines at the exhibition present 114 works by Kamal-ol-Molk, while a third large displayer presents to the visitors the opportunity of creating images of Kamal-ol-Molk's paintings by sorting puzzle pieces.
The ceremony on the 75th anniversary of endowment of Malek National Library and Museum and the permanent exhibition "Kamal-ol-Molk" was held at on Wednesday, November 2, in the presence of a large group of artists and authors, including Aminollah Rashidi, Ali Dehbashi, Ebrahim Haqiqi, Keikhosro Khoroush, Abbas Mashadizadeh, Reza Khodadadi, Iraj Eskandari, Behnam Kamrani, Ramin Etemadi, Ahmad Khoshnavis and representatives from Astan-e Qods Razavi.