Farhad Ostovani was born in Lahijam in northern Iran. He started to paint at the age of twelve under the direction of a traditional painter. In 1970 he entered the Art School of the Teheran University. Four years later, after a BA in visual arts he joined the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
After long periods of travel in the Middle East, Egypt, Italy and the United States, he decided to come and live in Paris, first in a studio in Faubourg Saint Antoine, and then in the rue de Bagnolet.
Gardens, trees and flowers, mountains and horizons are among the painters preferred motives.
His first exhibition was in the Institut Français of Téhéran. In Paris he has shown his mountains at the Galerie de l'Échaudé and worked with the Galerie Lambert-Rouland for close to twelve years. He has shown at the Château de Tours, and works since 2010, with the Galerie Thessa Herold in the Marais district
Outside France he has also shown his work in Los Angeles with Herbert Palmer, Louis Stern Fine Arts and at the William Turner Gallery, and with Robert Brown in Washington, as well as at the Musée Jenisch and the Galerie Arts et Lettres in Vevey, and the Galerie Rigassi in Bern, Switzerland; at the Morat-Institut für Kunst und Kunstwissenchaft in Fribourg in Brisgau, Germany and at the Rembrandt Museum in Amsterdam.
He has created a large series based on Bach's Goldberg Variations over a span of fifteen years. In 2008 he started to work on a series around the Bach's cello suites at the Bogliasco Foundation in Liguria, where he returned in 2013 to finish his work on the first cello suite
