Obituary: Reza Olia, Iranian sculptor and activist who targeted the Islamic Republic from Italy

ROME — Reza Olia was a rebel as an artist -- While others fought with a clinched fist he fought with the tools of an artist who used his hands to craft works that drew attention to the injustices he saw.

 Often with the painters brush and more often as a sculptor. The author and political activist built public monuments across Italy as a surrogate for Iran. The long time exile died in Rome on 9 July 2026. He was 87. For more than six decades, Olia combined an accomplished artistic career with political activism. First as an angry young man he opposed the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah and Iran’s native monarchy. Later his target was the Ayatolllahs of the Islamic Republic. Art he held should bear witness to injustice and preserve the memory of those who struggled against tyranny. And throughout his life his native country would see more than his fair share of tyranny. Born in Tehran in 1939, Olia inherited his artistic talent from his father, Professor Mahmoud Olia. The elder Olia was already one of Iran’s leading painters and a distinguished pupil of Kamal-ol-Molk (Mohammad Ghaffari), the artist widely credited with transforming Persian painting through the introduction of European realism and establishing the foundations of modern Iranian art one brush stroke at a time. The father encouraged the son to take up drawing and painting from childhood, beginning a lifelong devotion to the visual arts. In the early 1960s, he left Iran for Italy to study sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. There he worked with two giants of twentieth-century Italian art: the painter Renato Guttuso and the celebrated sculptor Giacomo Manzù, whose work helped shape modern European sculpture. Always the rebel his first public commission was unveiled in 1974 and it honored an Italian partisans in the town of Arcevia. The following year he switched to Iranian themese when he honored Iran’s Khosrow Roozbeh, installed in Fiano Romano. Over the following decades he produced sixteen public monuments dedicated to members of the Italian Resistance and leading political and cultural figures, including Enrico Berlinguer, Aldo Moro, Sergio Garavini, and Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda. His artistic work also preserved the memory of many prominent Iranians. Among those he sculpted were the singers Emad Ram and Marzieh as well as Neda Agha- Soltan, Navid Afkari, Reyhaneh Jabbari, the poet Baktash Abtin, Dr. Manouchehr Hezarkhani, Danielle Mitterrand, and Lord Slynn of Hadley. Many of these works are housed in the anti-regime Museum of Resistance. In 1976, after the Iranian embassy in Rome confiscated his passport because of his political activities, he was granted political asylum in Italy in a case that attracted considerable public attention. Following the establishment of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), Olia joined the organization and remained one of its longest-serving members. He adopted other revoluitionary causes as well never loosing his passion for working for change. His book “The Daughters of Iran” chronicled the lives and ordeals of women political prisoners in Iran. He introduced the book through more than twenty lectures across Italy, frequently hosted by municipal governments and associations of former Italian partisans. After the 1993 assassination in Rome of Mohammad Hossein Naghdi, the NCRI representative in Italy, Italian authorities placed Olia under police protection because of threats to his life. This only added to his renown and his desire to fight on and in new ways. As he grew older, his hands trembled. If anything his voice grew louder. During a meeting with Prime Minister Romano Prodi in 2007, he urged Italy and the Council of Europe to take stronger action against executions and human rights abuses in Iran. In 2020, he undertook a twelve-day hunger strike in Fiano Romano on behalf of an Iranian sailor seeking political asylum after fleeing an Iranian vessel in Genoa. He saw in the young sailor a story not unlike his own – a desperate young Iranian seeking safety in Italy. However, international efforts, the young man was returned to Iran, where he was reportedly quickly executed. In 2018 the Amphitheater of the University of Rome played host to an event honoring Olia. It was attended by the Deputy Minister of Culture of Italy and the chairman and members of the Board of Directors of the Artists ‘House, a number of Italian scientific and cultural personalities, journalists, directors and artists, were also present Olia’s life represents a rare combination of accomplished artist and tireless campaigner whose commitment never faltered despite exile, personal risk, and advancing age. When he arrived in Italy in the mid-20th century the world of politics and art were as close as any time in history. This was less the case in the early 21st. A bronze work of Olia’s titled Seated Woman, measuring some 54 centimetres high, sold in Rome for €310 in September 2025. Auction records also include lithographs and several other sculptural works sold for modest prices. He is survived not by these commercial works but, by a body of work that stands in public spaces across Italy and in museum collections dedicated to Iran’s contemporary struggle. After all it was never about the money. He was a rebel. khg