Partou Zia was a British-Iranian artist and writer. Born in Tehran, she emigrated to England in 1970, where she completed her secondary education at Whitefields school near Hendon, London (1972–78). Zia studied Art History at the University of Warwick (1977–80) and at the Slade School of Fine Art (1986–91). In 2001, she completed a Ph.D. at Falmouth College of Arts and the University of Plymouth. In 1993, she moved to Cornwall where she lived and worked with her husband, the painter Richard Cook, until her death from cancer, in March 2008. Tate St Ives honoured her parting by hanging one of her last completed canvases, Forty Nights and Forty Days as a memorial to her, for a month, at the gallery's entrance.
In 2003, Tate St Ives initiated a pioneering residency programme at the historic Porthmeor Studios in St Ives, Cornwall, previously occupied by Borlase Smart, Ben Nicholson, and Patrick Heron. Zia was the first recipient of this award and her exhibition at Tate St Ives was accompanied by a catalogue 'Entering the Visionary Zone'.
