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Born in 1917, in Ganjeh Azerbaijan, Ostad Hossein Ganjineh returned to Persia (Iran) in 1929 to the city of Tabriz. He began to work in his father's Batik workshop at the age of 15. He moved to Tehran in 1951 and started to teach Batik at the Fine Arts College of Tehran University. He founded the first silk workshop in 1958.
After the Islamic Revolution, he started to teach at the Alzahra, Art, Soureh, Jahade Daneshgahi Universities as well as the Fine Art College of Tehran University. He also is a member of the handcraft organization and a member of The Academy of Arts.
He has invented 25 new techniques in Silk and Batik which has won an international fame. Ostad Ganjineh has been known as the best artist of Batik and Silk throughout Asia and Europe. He received the honorary doctorate from the Ministry of Guidance and Tehran University.

It is 36 years now that he is going up the staircases of his workshop one by one. All these years, his workshop has seen many different colors, designs, students, but there remains only a single footstep on its stairs. It has been so many years that Hossein Kalagheichi Ganjineh, the father of Silk screen of Persia is doing his best in propagation of this art throughout the country. By hearing his stories and complaints about the days when silk screen was not yet known in Iran and how they arduously printed posters until finally and mainly due to his efforts, silk screen somehow found its place in Iran.
Hossein Ganjineh was grown up in weaver and publishing family. The family owned a Batik workshop for many generations. They then started the first silk screen workshop. This is how it came to birth in Ganjineh's own words: "One of my uncle's friends in Tabriz who had studied chemical engineering in relation to fabric weaving in France, taught us silk screen in a primitive and theoretical way for the first time. Unfortunately, as he had not brought the necessary tools and instruments with himself, he could not give us any practical training. In his next trip to France, he brought some colors and silk trowel and other necessary instruments and taught us the trade this time in a practical way. As we did not have access to the equipments we were unable to produce large works."

He believes silk screen is like everyday food to our world as everything we see from fabrics, metals, tiles, glasses to colorful scarves, Billboards, placards, they are all produced by this technique. That is why he calls it daily food.
"With the outbreak of the Second World War, we moved from Tabriz to Tehran with a group of people who had migrated to Tabriz from Azerbaijan. My uncle's engineer friend let us work in his shop in Lalezar for free and together with him and my uncle, we started a silk workshop and developed it. The number of orders we received was incredible. Most of them were for tea packages and tin containers, billboards and as such. We soon became famous and people from other cities came to our workshops, waiting long hours to have their orders done. I asked the ministry in question to allow me to travel to other cities, train people there to start their own workshops, which was immediately agreed. We prepared the equipments in Tehran and sent them to other cities. Soon there were Batik workshops in 17 provinces."

Ostad Ganjineh also travelled to Indonesia - the birthplace of the art of Batik - some years ago when where Persian silk screen was announced the best in Asia. He was more interested in Batik than silk screen. He considers silk screen as an industry and not art as such. As mentioned before, the family was involved in the art Batik for many generations. The birth place of this art was in China and then an Indonesian master founded the first workshop in Indonesian Island, Java. It was then taken by other countries, adapting it to their own traditions and customs, thus creating their own styles.
Hossein Ganjineh was invited to establish the department of silk screen at the Fine Arts College of Tehran University in 1969. The required equipments were ordered and the curriculum was planned.
Soon by the virtue of his relentless efforts and perseverance, the first silk screen workshop was established in the Tehran University and later in the Art, Alzahra, Shahid Rajayee, Soureh and Jahad Universities.



Apart from silk and Batik, Hossein Ganjineh is also interested in painting. In his painting he makes use of the Batik techniques as well. He says: "Life is beautiful and I am filled with joy when I see people exchanging love. To me, only when people start hating wars and weapons, we will have a beautiful world to live in."
He was also a permanent member of the Iranian Academy of Arts.































Ostad Hossein Ganjineh died on April 20th 2011 in Teheran.
He was 94 years old. May he rest in peace.