Picturing Iran

This book assesses modern Iranian visual culture from the 1960’s and 1970’s and suggests that modernity in Iran was a creative, complex, and contested process. It examines the expression of Iranian modernity in a variety of media including painting and sculpture, photography, posters, and graphic arts. It highlights new modes of artistic production and the expanding scene in Iran: developments in Iranian art criticism, exhibition apparatus, education, and patronage. The contributors also address changes in the iconography of Iranian art and in the increasingly social role of the artist. This groundbreaking work demonstrates that the visual arts serve as an important archival record of a critical period in Iranian history.