October 6, 2025
Manoucher Yektai, an Iranian-born American artist and poet who died at 97 in 2019, was best known for his vivid, improvisational paintings of still lifes, landscapes, and portraits that blurred the line between abstraction and representation. A founding member of the New York School—an informal group of avant-garde American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active during the 1950s and 1960s—Yektai combined his Persian roots, Parisian education, and American modernism to develop a uniquely expressive style of painting. Curated by acclaimed writer and editor Negar Azimi, this survey spans twenty years of the late painter’s work, from 1948 to 1969. It explores his engagement with postwar art movements and Beaux-Arts traditions, highlighting his experimentation with Surrealist-inspired abstractions, Abstract Expressionist still lifes, Minimalist color studies, and portraits with thick impasto, along with other improvisational works, both large and small.
