Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's portrait is exhibited by the crowd attending the opening of the Tehran university.

Islamic Art Now: Contemporary Art of the Middle East
© Abbas
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Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's portrait is exhibited by the crowd attending the opening of the Tehran university.

France, 1979, printed 2016
Photographs
Gelatin silver print
Image: 9 15/16 × 14 3/4 in. (25.24 × 37.47 cm) Primary support: 12 × 16 in. (30.48 × 40.64 cm)
Purchased with funds provided by Art of the Middle East: CONTEMPORARY (M.2016.199.5)
Not currently on public view

Curator Notes

...
In the tumultuous penultimate days of the shah, protests and strikes paralyzed the nation. Schools and universities were closed, newspapers suspended, and public assembly prohibited. This photograph, in which Ayatollah Khomeini’s portrait is exhibited by a crowd, was taken on January 14, 1979, at the reopening of Tehran University, two days before the shah left Iran.
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Bibliography

  • Komaroff, Linda. In the Fields of Empty Days: The Intersection of Past and Present in Iranian Art. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich; New York: DelMonico Books-Prestel, 2018.