Iran Issa-Khan

Coconuts and The Leaf (Diptych), Framed black and white nature photographs

2000

Born in Tehran and raised in Europe and the United States, Iran, Issa-Khan began her photography career in the late 1970s studying with William Minor, Jr. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Issa-Khan photographed Paulina Porizkova, Christy Turlington, Iman, Andie Mac Dowell, Debbie Dickinson Talisa Soto, and other supermodels whose images have appeared on the covers of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle and in numerous editorials and advertising campaigns in the United States, Europe and Latin America. Her portrait retrospective includes designers and their families such as Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, the Ferragamo family, the Fendi family, Prince Egon and Diane von Furstenberg, Carolina and Reinaldo Herrera, and Paloma Picasso. Issa-Khan also photographed Ms. Picasso’s international advertising campaigns. She photographed Nancy Reagan at the White House as well as The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace, President and Mrs. Pastrana of Colombia, Baron David and Baroness Olympia de Rothschild in Paris, and Rufino Tamayo in Mexico. In 1999, Issa-Khan transitioned from photographing beautiful people and celebrities to flowers and objects of nature. Her new photographic work has captured the sensuality of flowers, tropical plants, seashells and numerous flora and fauna objects, immediately translating their natural beauty into sensuous art forms. Her recent images are reminiscent of the works of Georgia O‘Keeffe, Tina Modotti, and Robert Mapplethorpe. Through her photographs, Iran Issa-Khan shares their intense admiration and daringly close-up confrontation with intimate detail. She invites us to share her vision in a quiet space where one lose themselves to the sensuality of creation.