Lilit Trianzadeh, (born on December 31, 1930 in Tehran – passed away on March 7, 2019) was an Iranian Armenian sculptor who is known as “the mother of Iranian sculpture”.
Lilit Terian was born in Armenian and art-lover family in Naderi neighborhood of Tehran. Her father was an employee in Melli Bank of Iran who paid attention to the beauty of buildings and architecture, and her mother had studied art in France. Therefore, she was encouraged by her mother to draw and paint.
After finishing high school, she studied painting at Tehran University of Fine Arts for a year. Then, she went to the National School of Fine Arts (Bozar) in Paris to complete her higher education in 1952. During the preparatory stages for the entrance exam of National High School of Fine Arts, she got interested in sculpture and pursued sculpture seriously until she received an equivalent of doctorate degree from National School of Fine Arts in 1960.
Then she came back to Iran and started educating in decorative arts colleges, from 1960-1980 and professionally taught in art schools for 23 years. In 1979, she transformed her father’s house into an “art workshop”. In the early years of Islamic revolution due to changes in the educational system of Iran, her experiences were no longer used in colleges. But during 1992 and 2000, she taught design and sculpture at Islamic Azad University of Iran.
She participated in many exhibitions since 1989, such as “Islamic Azad University Professors’ Exhibition” in 1994. In March 2007, as the first International Sculpture Symposium in Tehran was held at Imam Ali Museum, a commemorative ceremony was also held for Lilith Trian, who is one of the first Iranian female sculptors.
Lilit Terian was a member of Iran’s sculpture and monument commission in the former Ministry of Culture and Arts, jury of the first biennial of sculpture in Tehran and a board member of the Sculptor Artists Association of Iran, who has organized various solo and group exhibitions.
Lilit Terian died at the age of 88 on March 7, 2019. Her funeral was on Saturday, March 25, in the holy church of Sarkis, and buried in the Armenian cemetery of Tehran (Borastan).