Mir Hossein Arjangi

Mir Hossein Arjangi (also spelled Arzhangi; Persian: میر حسین ارجنگی; 1881–1963) was an Iranian painter.^[1] A native of Tabriz,^[2] he was the son of Agha Ebrahim, a court painter under Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar (r. 1896–1907), and had a younger brother named Abbas Rassam Arjangi.^[1] "Arjangi" was a surname the two brothers later adopted, based on the Arzhang, the illustrated book of Mani, the 3rd-century founder of Manichaeism, whom they considered the legendary founder of Iranian painting.^[3] In 1903, Mir Hossein and Abbas Rassam relocated to the Russian Empire, staying in the city of Tiflis.^[1] After 1908, the two brothers moved to Moscow, but had moved back to Iran by 1914 due to World War I.^[1] Returning to Tabriz, Mir Hossein opened a painting school there. Although not much is known about the school, it might have taught the same Russian painting styles that was used in Tiflis and Moscow.^[4]

Possibly due to their political views, Mir Hossein and Abbas Rassam have not been given much credit for their contributions to the history of modern Iranian art.^[5]

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  Portrait of the 19th-century Iranian prime minister Amir Kabir in the Golestan Palace
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  Illustration of the Equestrian Statue of Naser al-Din Shah in the Negarestan Palace
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  Portrait of a Qajar prince in the Negarestan Palace

• Adinehvand, Fahimeh Khosravi (2023). "ارژنگی". The Great Islamic Encyclopaedia (in Persian).
• Diba, Layla S. (2025). "Border Crossings: Iranian Artists in Tsarist Russia and Georgia". In Amanat, Abbas; Gledhill, Kevin; Nejad, Kayhan A. (eds.). The Caspian World: Connections and Contentions at a Modern Eurasian Crossroads. Cornell University Press. pp. 247–268. ISBN 978-1501781292.