Dawn McNutt
Special to THE DAILY

When Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian was growing up in Iran, she said, “I fear I am destined to spend my life in the shadows.”

Fortunately for her, and for readers of this fascinating memoir, her life has been spent as far away from the shadows as one can imagine.

She becomes a world famous artist and well known collector of Iranian Folk Art.

She marries twice. The second time is for love to a man (Abol Farmanfarmaian) whose family is termed “the Rockefellers of Iran.”

She is also one of the first women to attend the Fine Arts College at Tehran University and later studies at Parsons School of Design in New York, where she happens upon a job as a layout artist at Bonwit Teller.

While at Bonwit Teller, Monir works alongside another struggling artist — Andy Warhol. Oh, and she hangs out with artist Jackson Pollack, too.

Eventually she returns to her beloved Iran where, at one of her fabulous dinner parties, she plays Twister with the Shah. (No, that’s not a typo!)

Along the way, she becomes a mother, travels on archaeological digs and leads what some might call “a charmed life.”

Born in 1924 in Iran (then still Persia), Monir grew up in a loving, supportive family that believed in the future of “modern Iran.”

Her father was a wealthy politician and staunch supporter of the Shah. He owned a substantial number of pistachio orchards outside of Qazvin, wrote news articles for Iran’s leading progressive newspaper and believed all women should be educated.

The year Monir turned seven, her father was elected to parliament and the family moved to Tehran. It was there, at the Zoroastrian School for Girls, that she discovered her talent for drawing. This talent would take her to places she could never imagine.

After being accepted at the Fine Arts College in Tehran, Monir decided to further her art education by studying in Paris.

At that time, however, France was engaged in the saga of World War II, and it simply wasn’t safe for a 20-year-old girl to travel there alone.

Instead, she received permission from her parents to journey to America until the war ended and with the help of her new friend, an American archeologist (who is actually a spy for the CIA) named Donald Wilber, she catches a ride on a U.S. battleship across the Pacific Ocean to a whole new world.

After arriving in New York City, she attended the Parsons School of Design and proceeded to make connections within the art world that many a starving artist can only dream of.

Opportunities abounded, and the young woman who once wrote about her childhood “I was ugly, dark and graceless,” began to realize, “By the time I figured out that I was supposed to be exotic and even in some unforeseen way beautiful, I also had plenty of evidence that these qualities opened doors.”

Not only is Monir beautiful, she is also incredibly talented.

Medium of choice

The mirror was her favorite art medium and by cutting the glass into strips and reconfiguring each piece to reflect off one another, she created unique masterpieces that captivated the New York City art scene.

She borrowed this idea from the mirror mosaics used in the Iranian Shiite shrines and turned it into a personal tribute to her beloved Iran, a country she would return to after her second marriage to an Iranian aristocrat, the aforementioned Farmanfarmaian.

It is during this time, the 1960s and 70s, that the majority of the book takes place and where Monir truly begins to transform herself into a “complete and full woman” while making a name for herself in her country’s storied history.

Advocate

She becomes an advocate for emerging artists in Iran and establishes herself as one of the premier collectors of Persian folk art and antiques.

Sadly, this vast collection was confiscated when the Shah fell, but Monir remains an iconoclast even now.

Monir is a force to be reckoned with and her memoir illustrates this with grace and style.

It’s easy to be envious of someone so obviously blessed with good fortune, but Monir’s writing also exposes her many insecurities and failures, as well as the profound success she achieved through perseverance and dedication.

Endearing

Her “I can’t believe this is happening to me” style is both unpretentious and decorous.

These are the very qualities that endear her to the reader
as well as the many people
she knew throughout her lifetime.

In a world of rampant tell-alls and sleazy biographies that simply drop names and expose the seamy activities of our favorite celebrities, Monir always takes the high road paved with graciousness and class.

Also included in the memoir are dozens of photographs of her art, family, friends and Monir herself.

These beautiful pictures enrich the reader’s experience by providing the visual element that holds the key to understanding just how powerful and provocative her beauty and art were.

Pre-Khomeini Iran

“Mirror Garden” also is fascinating because it illustrates a pre-Khomeini Iran — one that few of today’s modern Iranian authors write about. With a recent success of Iranian memoirs such as Azar Nafisi’s “Reading Lolita in Tehran” and Davar Ardalan’s “My Name is Iran,” this generation that grew up during the Revolution have little to no memory of what Iran once was.

Luckily, Monir remembers in vivid detail and provides the reader with a glimpse of a world that few of us have had the privilege to reside in.

It was during this time that an Army officer named Reza Pahlavi became the Shah and envisioned a new Iran of industry and Western ideas that included educating women and automobiles as transportation.

It was also during this time that a young girl dreamed of studying art, traveling the world and making a few new friends along the way.

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