First Solo U.S. Museum Exhibition of Manoucher Yektai Opens at Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami.
Landmark presentation brings together over 30 paintings, including rarely seen works from the 1940s
Installation view: “Manoucher Yektai: The Stranger and the Tree” at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, April 30-November 22, 2026. Photo: Chris Carter.
The first solo U.S. museum exhibition of major Abstract Expressionist Manoucher Yektai is now on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami), offering a new perspective on a singular voice within the movement. Manoucher Yektai: The Stranger and the Tree traces four distinct series created between 1948 and 1963,bringing together approximately 30 paintings that chart the artist’s evolution from surrealist-inflected abstraction to his signature gestural style, including rarely seen works from 1948-1949. Curated by Donna Honarpisheh, Associate Curator at ICA Miami, the exhibition takes its title from a 2005 poem by the artist and is on view through November 22, 2026.
A founding member of the New York School, Yektai is known for his richly impastoed canvases, which move fluidly between still life, landscape, portraiture, and color field. His work balances expressive mark-making with a sustained engagement in representation, charting a distinctive course in postwar art. Drawing on Iranian mystical poetry, Persian rugs, calligraphic forms, domestic table settings and flora, and Yektai’s paintings synthesize Iranian and American visual vocabularies alongside Parisian modernism and gestural painting. The result is a deeply personal yet transnational vision within the New York School.
“Yektai’s work expands the history of Abstract Expressionism by foregrounding a transnational perspective that bridges Iranian and American visual traditions,” said Alex Gartenfeld, ICA Miami’s Irma and Norman Braman Artistic Director. “This exhibition reflects ICA Miami’s commitment to advancing scholarship on artists whose contributions have not yet been fully recognized within the canon.”
The exhibition opens with rarely seen paintings from 1948–49, rendered in earthly tones characteristic of Yektai’s early period. Featuring flowing organic forms and sinuous lines that evoke calligraphic abstraction and mystical symbolism, these works establish the artist’s early formal concerns while dissolving distinctions between ground, depth, surface, and subject. The presentation continues with heavily impastoed works from the 1950s—paintings that verge on sculpture in their physicality and three-dimensional presence.
Yektai’s figurative works, developed in the early 1950s and sustained throughout his career, challenge the conventions of portraiture by blurring the boundary between figuration and abstraction. Through layered marks and expressive smears, his subjects defy representational likeness while remaining emotionally resonant. The exhibition concludes with naturalistic abstractions from 1959 to 1963, lyrical compositions of flowers, plants, and landscapes built through repeated diagonal strokes. Yektai’s landscapes are characterized by the dissolution of the genre’s horizon line, allowing trees and organic structures to emerge from dense fields of gesture. This destabilization of ground echoes the artist’s cosmopolitan and diasporic experience.
“Manoucher Yektai’s work occupies a singular place in the history of postwar painting, at once deeply rooted in the language of abstraction while remaining committed to domestic scenes and rituals of everyday life. Grounded in his engagement with Persian poetry, his practice articulates a poetics of solitary witness that unfolds across his early works, still lifes, figural compositions, and landscapes.” said Associate Curator Donna Honarpisheh. “This exhibition offers an opportunity to reconsider his contributions not only within Abstract Expressionism, but within a broader, more global history of modern art.”
Exhibition Support
Exhibitions at ICA Miami are supported by the Knight Foundation. Major support is provided by the Nicoll Family Fund. Additional support is provided by Karma and Farhang Foundation.
Sustainability Commitment
ICA Miami is committed to reducing its climate footprint by adopting best practices for sustainability and partnering with organizations that focus on conservation. As part of this effort, ICA Miami has adopted sustainable shipping methods for all exhibitions and implements carbon offsets for select major exhibitions. ICA Miami is also the first museum in Florida to support the use of renewable energy and the growth of the sector. The museum matches 100% of its electricity consumption through the procurement of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). In 2020, the museum was among the original grantees for the first Frankenthaler Foundation funding for sustainability efforts in the arts.
About the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami (ICA Miami) is dedicated to promoting continuous experimentation in contemporary art, advancing new scholarship, and fostering the exchange of art and ideas throughout the Miami region and internationally. Through an energetic calendar of exhibitions and programs, and its collection, ICA Miami provides an important international platform for the work of local, emerging, and under-recognized artists, and advances the public appreciation and understanding of the most innovative art of our time. Launched in 2014, ICA Miami opened its new permanent home in Miami’s Design District in 2017, and in 2024 announced its expansion with the acquisition of a second site on the same block at 23 NE 41st Street in the Miami Design District, set to open in 2027. The museum’s central location positions it as a cultural anchor within the community and enhances its role in developing cultural literacy throughout the Miami region. The museum offers free admission, providing audiences with open, public access to artistic excellence year-round.
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami is located at 61 NE 41st Street, Miami, Florida, 33137. For more information, visit www.icamiami.org or follow the museum on Instagram and explore the ICA Miami Channel for inside looks at ICA Miami exhibitions and the practices of the most exciting artists working today.
