According to himself, Sohrab Sepehri was born in Qom on October 7th 1928, but he did not stay long in there and moved to Khansar and then to his ancestors’ hometown, Kashan. His grandfather, Mirza Nasrullah Khan Sepehari, was the first manager of Kashan city telegraph office. His father Asadullah and his mother Mahjabin, were both art and poetry lovers .He studied at Khayyam Elementary School (1940), and Pahlavi High School in Kashan. After graduation he joined the culture organization of Kashan city. In June 1943, he participated in the sixth grade literary exam and received his high school diploma. Then he went to Tehran and studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of Tehran University and was employed by the oil company in Tehran at the same time, which later he resigned after 8 months of employment. In 1951, Sepehri published his first collection of Nimayi poems called Death Color. In 1953, he graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts and received the first academic degree honor. In the same year, he participated in several painting exhibitions in Tehran and also published his second collection of poems titled “Life of Dreams”. In December 1954, he started working at the office of Fine Arts (Culture and Art) in the department of museums while he was teaching in conservatories of fine arts.
Poetry
Most of Sohrab Sepehri’s poems are composed in Neo-poetry style. His poems have original and creative illustrations. Learning from Zen philosophy as well as his humanistic perspective, he achieved a new style that “the green volume” is considered as the evolved version of his unique style. He used to create his works of art in isolation and far from the society; therefore he chose “Chenar Village” and the desert of Kashan to achieve his solitude. Sohrab Sepehari’s poetry is full of pristine and fresh visions portrayed with a soft, gentle, clean and coherent language. Some of his most famous poems are: Nashani, Sadye Paye Aab and Musafir which is one of the longest Persian poems in Neo-poetry style.
Painting
In painting, he was inspired by the aesthetic achievements of the East and the West. He used such a new and different approach that his pea geometric forms and gray color were distinguishable from all his contemporary figurative painters. He had achieved a concise, semi-abstract style that was useful for expressing his poetic revelations in the wilderness. Sepehri held most of his domestic paintings exhibitions in “Seyhon Gallery” and never participated in the opening ceremony. As Sepaheri’s painting progressed, it appeared less through the direct control of brush, and in his latest works it is more of an improvisational behavior using non-traditional painting tools. His signature on his paintings is in Nastaliq script, which according to Morteza Momayez shows his humble and Iranian spirit. “Dead Nature” 1957, “Anemones, Stream and Tree Trunk” 1960, “Grass and Tree Trunk” 1962, “Composition with Colored Stripes” 1970, “Composition with Squares” 1972 and “Desert Landscape” 1978 are some of his most famous paintings. Sepehri holds the record for the highest price of modern Iranian paintings. In 2013, two of his paintings (tree trunks and an abstract painting) were sold for one billion and eight hundred million tomans.
Sohrab Sepehri was diagnosed with leukemia in 1979 therefore he went to England for treatment, but due to progression to a severe level, he returned to Tehran hopelessly. He finally died in the evening of Monday April 29th 1980 at Pars Hospital in Tehran and buried at Imamzadeh Sultan Ali Ebn Mohammad Baqer courtyard of Mashhad Ardahal village located near Kashan.