Elisabeth Holthaus, born March 15, 1945 in Chemnitz, Germany. Since childhood she was exposed to modern art through her father’s large graphic collection of twentieth century art which early on inspired her to paint.
Mrs. Holthaus studied music education in Cologne, Germany. After graduating she taught at a high school in Cologne and later German at a New York college. She was especially interested in the arts, taking several courses in New York and started to work on drawings, watercolors and acrylics.
In Germany, but most often in Tehran, she has had several exhibitions.
Around 1990 she started to produce paintings for music CD covers, for example a painting showing only “silence”, which was a direct inspiration for her husband Alireza Mashayekhi’s score entitled “Silence”.