CV - Saied Dai
Personal Details
Persian by birth, Saied Dai was born in Tehran in 1958 and came to England at the age of six.
He began his seven years of art training at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design and shortly after was awarded a place at the Royal Academy of Arts for his postgraduate studies. There, he was privileged to come into contact with artists of real distinction such as Peter Greenham, Norman Blamey and Roderic Barrett.
He was regarded well enough to be invited back to the RA Schools to teach under Leonard McComb’s Keepership, where drawing was seen to be the cornerstone of all the disciplines. He says, “I was fortunate enough to be taught art as architecture. Drawing reveals the way an artist thinks. It is the means by which one makes visual relationships.”
On recommendation from Norman Blamey RA, Saied was also placed to teach at the Prince of Wales Institute of Architecture in Regent’s Park at its idealistic inception.
After being elected to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in 2004, he won the prestigious Ondaatje Prize for Portraiture and the Society’s Gold Medal in 2006, followed by the Prince of Wales Drawing Award in 2007.
ART EDUCATION
1980 - 1984
Royal Academy of Arts, London Post Graduate Diploma in Painting
1977 - 80
Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design Degree - Fine Art, Painting
1976 - 77
Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design Foundation Diploma
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2011
‘Pure Gold: 50 Years of the Federation of British Artists’, Mall Galleries, London.
2010
‘The Discerning Eye’ Mall Galleries, London.
Royal West of England Academy, Open Exhibition, invited Artist.
‘The Magic and Poetry of Everyday Life’, Messum’s Gallery, London.
Brian Sinfield Gallery, Burford, mixed exhibition.
2009 – 2010
The New English Art Club, Mall Galleries, London.
2009
Brian Sinfield Gallery, Burford, Two Man Exhibition.
Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Mall Galleries, London.
Frost and Reed Gallery, London, Three Man Show.
2008
Alan Cluckow Fine Art, Sunningdale, Berkshire, Three Man Show.
Girton College, Cambridge, Peoples Portrait Collection.
Anthony Hepworth Fine Art, Mixed Exhibition.
Cambridge Gallery, Santa Monica, California, U.S.A., Mixed Exhibition.
2007
Quest Gallery, Bath, Solo Exhibition.
Winner of The Prince of Wales Drawing School Award for Portrait Drawing, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Mall Galleries, London.
Chappel Gallery, Colchester, Mixed Exhibition.
2006
The Holburne Dukes Portrait Prize,
Holburne Museum, Bath.
Petley Fine Art, Cork Street, London, Solo Show.
Winner of ‘Ondaatje’ Prize for Portraiture, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Mall Galleries, London.
National Portrait Gallery, Selection of work from the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition.
2005
Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Mall Galleries, London.
Petley Fine Art, Cork Street, London, Solo Show.
2004
Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Mall Galleries, London.
The Holburne Contemporary Portrait Prize, Holburne Museum, Bath.
2000
Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Mall Galleries, London.
National Portrait Gallery, Selection of work from the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition.
1990 - 2000
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London (regular exhibitor).
Nairi Sahakian Gallery, London.
B.P. Portrait Award Exhibition (Prize Winner)
National Portrait Gallery, London.
‘Young Contemporaries‘, (Prize Winner) Christies, London.
Sue Rankin Gallery, London, Mixed Exhibition.
Agnew’s Fine Arts, London, Mixed Exhibition.
Portrait of the Artist's Wife