Manoucher Yektai (Iranian, b. 1922)

Although born in Iran, Manoucher Yektai settled in New York from 1948. Exposed to the gestural Abstract Expressionist style that was adopted by established artists Willem de Kooning, Sam Francis and Jackson Pollock, Yektai's paintings of the 1950s and 1960s period adopted the use of deeply worked surfaces alternating between thick and thin impasto as well as white and colour.
The present work Tomato Plant is a captivating and delightful example from 1959 that adopts the maturity and skill of the Abstract Expressionist visual lexicon that has established him as an international rather than Iranian artist. In the present work, Yektai re-examines the deep-rooted artistic tradition of still life in a semi-abstract form. It is clear within the heavy brushstrokes and impasto that Yektai's primary aim was to highlight the profundity of the material he used. While simultaneously highlighting the notion of space within the canvas. In the late 1950s and 1960s Yektai produced consecutive paintings of a lemon as well as several other still life subjects such as flowers in a vase, and in this case the tomato plant, that have become very characteristic of Yektai's style.
Notably, in 1960, George and Elinor Poindexter staged an exhibition for the artist, from which the present work belongs. As a highly respected source for Abstract art this exhibition cemented Yektai's contribution to abstract art universally. Yektai's oeuvre has created such an impact that a work of a similar size, also depicting a tomato plant, is currently in the permanent collection of the San Francisco MoMA.