Maryam Safajoo is a Persian American painter born in 1986. She is a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow in Fine Arts.
She earned her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston.
Her work centers on memory, resilience, and justice. She documents the persecution of the Baháʼí community in Iran after the 1979 revolution.
“My depictions are often the first time these events have taken visual form.”
Maryam Safajoo
She works in miniature oil paintings on linen. Many events she depicts had no prior visual record.
She experienced this oppression herself. She remembers when security forces raided her home and took her father to prison. Her sister was denied education and placed in solitary confinement. Her mother was imprisoned at 19.
Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Nobel Prize Museum, and the Crocker Art Museum.
What is Maryam Safajoo known for?
She is known for documenting the persecution of Iran’s Baháʼí community through miniature oil paintings on linen.
When was Maryam Safajoo born?
She was born in 1986.
What recognition has Maryam Safajoo received?
She was awarded a 2025 Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts. The fellowship was underwritten by Robert De Niro in honor of his father.
Maryam Safajoo’s mother was imprisoned at age 19, and nearly all her cellmates were executed for being Baháʼí.
