Tony Shafrazi

Tony Shafrazi (born in Abadan, Iran, in 1943) is an Iranian-born American art dealer and gallery owner, best known for his work in the New York art market from the late 1970s onward. He trained as an artist at the Royal College of Art in London between 1963 and 1967 before turning to dealing.

He moved to New York in 1969 and lectured at several universities, including the School of Visual Arts. His most notorious episode came in February 1974, when he spray-painted the words "KILL LIES ALL" across Picasso's Guernica at the Museum of Modern Art. The paint came off easily because the painting was heavily varnished. He is believed to have been protesting the bail release of Lieutenant William Calley, convicted over the My Lai massacre.

Between 1976 and 1978 he worked in Tehran as art adviser to the Shah and to Kamran Diba, helping assemble a 20th-century collection for the city's museum of contemporary art. After the 1979 Revolution he returned to New York, opened his first gallery, and introduced artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf. His gallery closed in 2014, but it remains a reference point for the New York art scene of the 1980s and 1990s.