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
2009
Brian Sinfield Gallery, Burford, Two Man Exhibition
Royal Society of Portrait Painters
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
Royal Society of Portrait Painters
Cambridge Gallery, Santa Monica, California, U.S.A., Mixed Exhibition
2007
Quest Gallery, Bath, Solo Exhibition
Royal Society of Portrait Painters
Winner of The Prince of Wales Drawing School Award for Portrait Drawing
Chappel Gallery, Colchester, Mixed Exhibition
2006
Holburne Museum, Bath, The Holburne Dukes Portrait Prize
Petley Fine Art, Cork Street, London, Solo Show
Royal Society of Portrait Painters
Winner of ‘Ondaatje’ Prize for Portraiture
National Portrait Gallery, Selection of work from the Royal Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition
2005
Royal Society of Portrait Painters
Petley Fine Art, Cork Street, London, Solo Show
2004
Royal Society of Portrait Painters
The Holburne Contemporary Portrait Prize, Holburne Museum, Bath
2000
Royal Society of Portrait Painters
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