Picturing Iran

When assessing the history of twentieth century cultural forms, non-western art can no longer remain relegated to the margins, viewed as derivative and imitative of canonical Western artistic modes. This assessment of modern Iranian visual culture from the 1960's and 1970's suggests that modernity in Iran was a creative, complex and contested process. The book examines the expression of Iranian modernity in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, posters and graphic arts. It highlights new modes of artistic production within an expanding institutional context, such as 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. Ultimately, these patterns of artistic production influenced the art that accompanied the Iranian Revolution of 1979.