Behjat Sadr was born in in Arāk, Iran, in 1924. Raised in patriarchal pre-revolution Iran, she turned to art as a way to make comment on her country, creating abstract images that address the subjects of memory and the body. Using a palette knife on canvas or metallic surfaces, Sadr pulled fragments from the places she went and the ideas she encountered, and also brought in Persian tapestries, Islamic architecture, calligraphy, and more. Sadr died in 2009, but not before winning acclaim in Iran. Her art is an archive bursting at the seams. —Clara Molot