Iran's vast collection of Western art, much long hidden, reemerges

TEHRAN, Iran — 

As Iran faces expanding tensions with the West and turmoil astatine home, a caller accumulation astatine the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art is displaying Western artwork including pieces not seen by the nationalist successful astatine slightest a decade.

The unveiling of the accumulation Eye to Eye has drawn galore women, their hairsbreadth uncovered, to the underground galleries of the depository successful Tehran's Laleh Park. Their presence, portion unacknowledged by authorities, shows the mode beingness has changed wrong Iran conscionable successful the past fewer years adjacent arsenic the country's theocracy presses guardant with enriching uranium to near-weapons people levels and launching attacks connected Israel during the ongoing Mideast wars.

"The archetypal feeling that came to me, and I told my parents, was that I can't judge I'm seeing these works, which person ever been kept acold from our eyes," said Aida Zarrin, a young pistillate astatine the museum.

"If specified events are held present and we tin spot artworks similar the remainder of the world, it's enough. They are truly precious."

The authorities of Iran's Western-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and his wife, the erstwhile Empress Farah Pahlavi, built the depository and acquired the immense postulation successful the precocious 1970s, erstwhile lipid boomed and Western economies stagnated. Upon opening, it showed sensational works by Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, Claude Monet, Jackson Pollock and different heavyweights, enhancing Iran's taste lasting connected the satellite stage.

But conscionable 2 years later, successful 1979, Shiite clerics ousted the shah and packed distant the creation successful the museum's vault. Some paintings — cubist, surrealist, impressionist and adjacent popular creation — sat untouched for decades to debar offending Islamic values and the quality of catering to Western sensibilities. Nearly everything is believed inactive to beryllium there, though an Andy Warhol people of the empress was slashed during the revolution.

Today, the postulation is apt worthy billions of dollars. Even with Iran present cash-strapped nether Western sanctions, officials with the depository person been capable to advocator for keeping the collection, though determination person been occasional trades successful the past for items from Persian history. Those sanctions whitethorn summation nether the adjacent medication of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.

As Iranian authorities person thawed, re-frozen and thawed again, the postulation resurfaces on with those changes.

Among the implicit 120 works being shown are ones from Picasso, Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon, on with celebrated Iranian artists. One of the Warhols, Jacqueline Kennedy II, is simply a silkscreen treble representation of the erstwhile U.S. archetypal woman successful mourning aft the 1963 assassination of her husband, President John Kennedy. Another Warhol representation of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger besides garnered attraction from the cellphone photograph snappers.

"A batch of these works are important works successful the past of art, and that's wherefore this amusement distinguishes itself from others," said Jamal Arabzadeh, the exhibition's curator. "A batch of radical with little vulnerability to creation person discovered the depository for the archetypal time. ... We are seeing a portion of the assemblage that are discovering creation and the depository and spot the imaginable of this place, and this is thing to beryllium arrogant of."

The beingness of Western creation comes arsenic Iran's authorities has agelong fought against items similar Barbie dolls and depictions of cartoon characters from The Simpsons. Such Western influences person been deemed un-Islamic successful the past and person been seen arsenic portion of a "soft" taste warfare against the Islamic Republic.

With a summons costing the equivalent of 14 U.S. cents, the accumulation offers a uncommon government-sanctioned lawsuit not involving the country's authorities oregon Shiite religion.

Among the visitors were galore women defying the country's mandatory headscarf, oregon hijab, law. Crackdowns implicit the hijab person slowed down aft Iran's statesmanlike predetermination successful July that elected reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, though idiosyncratic cases of apprehension proceed to gully anger.

And for many, the outgo of tickets to question overseas fixed Iran's collapsing rial currency support overseas museums retired of reach.

"This is precise charismatic for creation enthusiasts due to the fact that not everyone tin spell and spot museums abroad. It's highly breathtaking to spot the works here," said a pistillate who lone gave her past name, Dolatshahi. "I had nary thought I could spot works by van Gogh and Picasso here."