The current war is only tertiarily preventing the piece from being made available to the public, and little is known about the museum\u2019s current fate. Its website, like many others in Iran, has been down, possibly due to internet disruptions in the country. Some users on social media shared posts showing artifacts in some museums put away or wrapped in protective materials.<\/p>\n
However, like dozens of other masterpieces in the museum, \u201cThe Painter and His Model\u201d has spent virtually all of the 47 years since the Islamic Revolution shut away in TMOCA\u2019s vaults, considered too inappropriate by the ayatollahs for display.<\/p>\n
The museum\u2019s core collection was assembled in the 1970s by Queen Farah Pahlavi, wife of then-shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Deeply passionate about art, the queen took advantage of the soaring prices of oil to bring to Tehran some of the best modern and contemporary art, acquiring works by Picasso, Andy Warhol, Claude Monet, Jackson Pollock, Vincent Van Gogh and dozens more, including Jewish and Israeli artists such as Marc Chagall and Yaacov Agam, and gay ones like Francis Bacon. In 2018, the value of the collection was estimated at $3 billion.<\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art was inaugurated in 1977, only two years before the deeply unpopular shah was deposed and ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took power in 1979.<\/p>\n For several years following the coup, Western art was kept in the basement and the building was used to showcase revolutionary propaganda and honor the revolution\u2019s \u201cmartyrs.\u201d As reported in a 2015 Bloomberg article, the first exhibition displaying Western art was not held until 1999.<\/p>\n \t Since then, permanent and special exhibitions<\/a> have featured many of the masterpieces, offering a glimpse of what Iran could have been, and at times, has attempted to be, despite its oppressive regime.<\/p>\n The 2025 exhibition \u201cPicasso in Tehran\u201d marked the first time \u201cThe Painter and His Model\u201d was shown in public in the country, according to Bloomberg (in 2012, it was briefly loaned to the Kunsthaus Zurich museum in Switzerland).<\/p>\n A few months later, an Associated Press photographer visited another exhibition inaugurated this past July, \u201cIn Women\u2019s Words,\u201d showcasing artworks of modern Iranian women artists. His pictures show many female visitors, as well as the women portrayed in the paintings, without head coverings, which is illegal in the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n A $1,200 coffee-table book to keep the spotlight on<\/p>\n For art experts and enthusiasts outside of the Islamic Republic, it has not been easy to keep track of the state of the museum and its masterpieces over the decades, considering the museum\u2019s policy to keep much of the art hidden, the general communication barriers and the difficulties of visiting Iran after the revolution.<\/p>\n Tourists from some Western countries considered less hostile by the regime have been able to visit Iran, especially during quieter periods, but there have also been numerous instances when foreigners were arrested and accused of espionage or other offences.<\/p>\n A few years ago, however, an art curator and a writer embarked on a journey from afar to track everything they could about the collection, its patroness and their stories to shine a spotlight on the hidden art. Their work led to the $1,200 coffee-table book \u201cIran Modern: The Empress of Art,\u201d originally published by luxury book publisher Assouline in 2018, and now in its second printing.<\/p>\n \u201cI was familiar with the collection because of my arts background, and the story had always fascinated me,\u201d art curator Viola Raikhel told The Times of Israel over a joint video interview with writer Miranda Darling last month. \u201cWhen Miranda and I met, we realized that we both had this passion about extraordinary women in history. I asked her whether she thought we could make a good book, and that\u2019s how our collaboration began.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Raikhel and Darling, who split their time between Australia, the UK and Switzerland, began to work on the project in 2014 and managed to get Farah Pahlavi on board and meet with her.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were very interested in the idea of soft power and how women navigate geopolitics in a way that is uniquely their own when they are not in a position of overt power,\u201d Darling said. \u201cWhen we met [Pahlavi], we began to understand a lot more about the influence she had through culture and the art in a sort of quiet, soft way.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe wanted the young people of Tehran to be able to see the best of the world\u2019s contemporary art at home,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n \t In the book, the authors recall some of the queen\u2019s most iconic moments as she met with various artists.<\/p>\n \u201cShe first met Andy Warhol at a state dinner at the White House [during the Ford administration],\u201d Raikhel said. \u201cWarhol was one of the guests, and she wanted to meet him, but he kept avoiding her. He was shy and thought [the queen] wanted to dance with him.\u201d<\/p>\n Eventually, the two connected. Warhol even visited Tehran and painted a portrait of the queen, one of the very few works damaged during the revolution.<\/p>\n Pahlavi also shared that the first time she met Chagall, he gave her three of his paintbrushes as a gift.<\/p>\n \u201cShe left them in her library in Tehran,\u201d Raikhel said. \u201cShe told us she hopes everyone just thinks they are old paintbrushes and leaves them there.\u201d<\/p>\n During the revolution, the museum\u2019s curator and many staff members put themselves in harm\u2019s way to protect the art. Thanks to their efforts, the collection was stored in the museum\u2019s vault, where it remained mostly intact.<\/p>\n \u201cThe curator locked himself into the vault, and he would not open the doors even when [the rioters] threatened him,\u201d Darling said. \u201cI think he probably saved the collection from the initial impulse to destroy or loot. He fought like a lion to protect the art.\u201d<\/p>\n A glimpse of what Iran could be<\/p>\n While researching their book, the two authors tried to learn as much as possible about what has been happening at the museum in more recent years, reading anything the press published about the exhibitions there and studying pictures from newspapers and from international visitors who had gone to Tehran.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AP25215603159968-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tPeople visit an exhibition called \u2018In Women\u2019s Words\u2019 showing some artworks of modern Iranian women artists from the collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Iran, on August 3, 2025. (AP Photo\/Vahid Salemi)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/5-\u00a9-Vanishing-Pictures-Production-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tFrom left: Miranda Darling, Farah Pahlavi, former queen of Iran, and Viola Raikhel in Paris in February 2017. (\u00a9 Vanishing Pictures Productions)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/3D_IRANMODERN-300x480.jpg\")
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\n\t\t\u2018Iran Moden: The Empress of Art\u2019 by Viola Raikhel-Bolot and Miranda Darling, published by Assouline in 2018, is to be republished in spring 2026. (Assouline)<\/p>\n
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