Front row: Ruhanguise Afnan, Hussein Afnan, Mehranguise Afnan
March 16. On this date in 2016, an art exhibit opened in Dubai featuring, among others, the art work of Maliheh Afnan, Bahá'u'lláh's great-granddaughter who had passed away five months previous.
The daughter of Persian parents, she was born in Haifa on March 24, 1935. to prominent Bahá'í lineage. Her father was Nayyir Afnan, son of Siyyid Ali Afnan and grandson of Hajjí Mírzá Siyyid Hasan, the brother-in-law of the Báb. Nayyir Afnan's mother was Furughiyyih Khanum, the daughter of Bahá'u'lláh from his third marriage to Gawhar Khanum. Her mother was Ruhangiz Afnan. Her maternal grandparents were Mírzá Hádí Shírází and Ḍíyá'íyyih Khánum, the eldest daughter of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Munirih Khánum. Ruhangiz, having married an individual who had been declared a Covenant-breaker by 'Abdu'l-Bahá was in turn declared a Covenant-breaker by her brother, Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith.
Maliheh Afnan moved to Beirut with her family in 1949. She received a BA from the American University of Beirut and a MA in Fine Arts from the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design in Washington, D.C.. Afnan lived in Kuwait from 1963 to 1966, in Beirut from 1966 to 1974 and in Paris from 1974 until 1997, when she moved to London.
Afnan's work has been shown primarily in France and in London. Her first solo show, in a Basel gallery in 1971, was organized by the American artist Mark Tobey. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the British Museum in London, the Written Art Collection in Germany, the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris and the BAII Bank Collection in Paris.
She died in London on January 6, 2016, at the age of 80.
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