Leyly Matine-Daftary

b. 1937, Iran
d. 2007

Matine-Daftary (b. 1937, Tehran, Iran; d. 2007, Paris, France) spent most of her life painting and teaching outside Iran. At 18, she enrolled at the Slade, where her tutors included Lucian Freud, who introduced her to the palette knife and may have impacted her future work in other ways; the angular portraiture of Freud and the London School compatriots are echoed in Matine-Daftary’s later portraits, which often feature striking geometries demarcated by colour.

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