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Iranian-born artist Haydar Hatemi | Photo by Sarah Jane Sanders
In a quiet suburb of Lexington, Iranian-born artist Haydar Hatemi enjoys the kind of work arrangement that most artists can only dream of. Like Michelangelo and great classical painters who preceded him, Hatemi’s work is funded by a rich patron – a king, no less.
Hatemi has been working on commissions from the royal family of Qatar since 1997, receiving up to seven figures for larger pieces made in the classic Ottoman style, an intricate and opulent style of painting that traces back to the ancient Ottomon and Persian empires. His works – some of them more than 20 yards wide in scale – adorn palaces and other important buildings in Qatar, whose royal family has used its wealth to make Qatar an international center for the arts, accumulating and displaying some of the world’s greatest art.
Hatemi, who blends classical Oriental styles and mixes in some modern elements as well, is not allowed to work for any other royal family, but he can work for other wealthy patrons and his work is coveted by collectors in Turkey and throughout the Middle East.
“He travels to Turkey and Qatar, throughout the Middle East, all the time,” said Hatemi’s son Lachin, who sometimes serves as his father’s translator.
Whlie Hatemi and his work are relatively under the radar in Lexington, where he and his wife, Shams, moved in the mid 1990s so that their sons Lachin and Aydan could attend the University of Kentucky, he has been profiled in a bevvy of international media outlets, including Al Jazeera and BAKU Magazine, a Conde Nast publication owned by the president of Azerbajan. From the outside, the family’s home in Hartland looks fairly modest for a neighborhood that boasts some of Lexington’s most expensive properties, but the interior boasts walls full of paintings that one might expect to see inside a fine art museum or even a royal palace.
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One of the first pieces that Hatemi and his son shared on a recent visit is a breathtaking large dining table that Hatemi built by hand and then painted with sweeping and meticulously detailed landscapes of Istanbul, Turkey, where the family lived for years after fleeing Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979.
“Half of Istanbul is in Europe and half of it is in Asia, and there are three bridges from one side to the other. This is a version of the old city, when it was called Constantinople,” Lachin explained, before showing several serving trays his father had painted, also featuring scenes of Istanbul.
The family lived on the European side of the transcontinental city of Istanbul, and the freeflowing cultural interplay between East and West is reflected throughout their home as well as Hatemi’s work. The family speaks four languages, switching back and forth as needed. In a series of works titled “Stories of the Messengers,” Hatemi drew inspiration from common teachings from four sacred texts – the Qu’ran, the Bible, the Avesta and the Torah – to express themes of tolerance, cultural understanding and peaceful coexistence. In his basement, which is also his studio, paintings of Mary and Jesus hang above wooden display cases filled with ostrich eggs that have been intricately painted with the profiles of rulers of the Ottoman empire. Subjects of his works oscillate between the palatial and the every day, from plants and flowers to landscapes and human subjects, with equal care and attention to detail given to them all.
Hatemi, who is humble and genial, hands me a magnifying glass so I can see the details of intricate paintings of flowers that adorn the dining room walls. Executed with the finest strokes of pointillism, the works show off Hatemi’s stunning skill working in miniatures, one of his greatest strengths as an artist.
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Hatemi’s work depicts all aspects of ancient Ottomon life, from the palatial to the every day. | Photo by Sarah Jane Sanders
Hatemi’s skill and style, not unlike his working arrangement, feel like they are from a distant, earlier time – and indeed, he is sometimes referred to “the last Ottoman painter.” He says he was lucky to have been trained by an old master in the classic Ottoman style.
“I trained with an old master of the Ottoman style when I was a teenager,” says Hatemi, who continues to teach students in the style today. “I was very lucky because not long after I finished, he died.”
After high school, Hatemi enrolled in the Tabriz Art Academy, where he completed his training before making a splash with Iranian art dealers; he later studied at the Fine Arts Academy at Tehran University.
While Hatemi’s commissions are sometimes very specific – he was once commissioned to paint a giant table with the theme of falconry, for instance – he also pursues his own personal artwork, which fills up the walls of his home.
“I get inspired and I work from here,” Hatemi says, pointing to his heart. “But sometimes it changes while I am in the middle of a piece. If you look at the old masters, canvas was expensive, and they often painted over their work.”
In his kitchen is his latest and most ambitious personal project – another large table, not quite finished, this one painted with the great horses of history, including Triple Crown winners such as Secretariat, War Admiral and Man O’ War.
“Historically, all the Thoroughbred horses came from Turkey,” Lachin translates. “There were three Turkish stallions that had been captured by the British, one in Hungary, one in Iraq and one in Syria. They took them to England and then bred them with British mares, so all of the Thoroughbreds can be traced back to Turkey.”
“He likes to paint whatever he likes,” says Lachin, adding that, “a lot of things he paints don’t exist anymore.”
Hatemi, who was also an antique dealer in Turkey, often consults old maps, etchings, books and historical paintings for reference before painting a historical work.
He also paints for his wife, Shams, who serves her guests tea and mulberries in their living room on a beautiful silver tray. Pointing at a painting above the sofa that re-creates a scene from her childhood home – Hatemi was her neighbor as a child – she smiles and says, “It makes me so happy to look at it and reminds me of so many memories.”
More of Hatemi’s work can be seen at www.haydarhatemi.com. ss