Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (Persian: موزه هنرهای معاصر تهران), also known as TMoCA, is among the largest art museums in Tehran and Iran. It has collections of more than 3,000 items that include 19th and 20th-century's world-class European and American paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures. TMoCA also has a major collection of Iranian modern and contemporary art.
The museum was inaugurated by Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi (Persian: فرح پهلوی) in 1977, just two years before the 1979 Revolution.Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art: The Crown Jewel, The Harpers Bazaar Arabia TMoCA is considered to have the most valuable collections of modern Western masterpieces outside Europe and North America.Iran Has Been Hiding One of the World’s Great Collections of Modern Art, Bloomberg
Background According to Shahbanu Farah, the idea for the museum originated in a conversation at a gallery opening in the 1970s, when the artist Iran Darroudi mentioned her desire for a permanent place to exhibit works. The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art was supposed to be a place to show contemporary and modern Iranian artists alongside other international artists doing similar work.
The museum was designed by Iranian architect and cousin of the empress, Kamran Diba, who employed elements from traditional Persian architecture of Yazd, Kashan, and other desert towns. Diba collaborated with architect Nader Ardalan during the design phase. It was built adjacent to Farah Park, renamed Laleh Park after the Islamic revolution, and was inaugurated in 1977. The building itself can be regarded as an example of contemporary art, in a style of an underground New York Guggenheim Museum. Most of the museum area is located underground with a circular walkway that spirals downwards with galleries branching outwards. Western sculptures by artists such as Ernst, Giacometti, Magritte, and Moore can be found in the museum's gardens.
The art selection was done under the office of Shahbanu Farah with a budget from the National Iranian Oil Company. The Shahbanu personally met many of the artists whose work was part of the museum collection, including the Western artists Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Henry Moore, Paul Jenkins, Arnaldo Pomodoro. Some people involved in the process of selecting art were the Americans, Donna Stein and David Galloway, and Kamran Diba, the architect and director of the museum, and Karimpasha Bahadori, who was the Chief of Staff of the cabinet.
After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Western art was stored away in the museum's vault until 1999 when the first post-revolution exhibition was held of western art showing artists such as David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol. Now pieces of the Western art collection are shown for a few weeks every year but due to the current conservative nature of the Iranian establishment, most pieces are never shown.
It is considered to have the most valuable collection of Western modern art outside Europe and the United States, a collection largely assembled by founding curators David Galloway and Donna Stein under the patronage of Farah Pahlavi.Iran Keeps Picassos in basement. LA Times. Kim Murphy. 19 September 2007. It is said that there is approximately £2.5 billion worth of modern art held at the museum. The museum hosts a revolving program of exhibitions and occasionally organizes exhibitions by local artists.
Collection curator Donna Stein later wrote a memoir, The Empress and I: How an Ancient Empire Collected, Rejected and Rediscovered Modern Art (2021), because she felt she was not properly credited for her role in curating this collection.
Politics In 1977, Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi purchased expensive Western artwork in order to open the contemporary art museum. This was a controversial act due to rising social and economic inequalities. The authoritarian government was intolerant of the growing opposition, which, only a few years later, would overthrow the monarchy in the Iranian revolution. A few art pieces did not survive the revolution including a public statue by Bahman Mohasses deemed un-Islamic and a 1977 Warhol painting, a portrait of the Shahbanu.
Le Monde art critic André Fermigier wrote an article in 1977 called "A museum for whom and for what?", "questioning the link between an Iranian child and a Picasso or a Pollock". Farah Pahlavi responded to this criticism, noting that Iranians can understand modern art, not all Iranians were living in remote villages, and this issue with modern art was not unlike one that had existed in France.
A touring exhibition was planned for autumn 2016 in Berlin, (Germany), consisting of a three-month tour of sixty artworks, half Western and half Iranian. The show was to run for three months in Berlin, then travel to the Maxxi Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome for display from March through August. However, the plan had to be postponed because the Iranian authorities had failed to allow the paintings to leave the country, also noting that, since the revolution, these paintings had not been shown in Iran. Finally, on 27 December 2016, a press release by Hermann Parzinger, the President of the organising committee, Berlin's Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (in German: Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz Berlin), cancelled the exhibition altogether.
In 2017, the TMoCA unexpectedly staged a show in Tehran which included the very works which were selected to travel to Europe: Berlin-Rome Travellers, Selected Works of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. It can be considered kind of an acte de résistance on the part of the museum director at the time, since, with the advent of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elected president of Iran in 2005, a harsh conservative wind has, to this day, blown away the relative openness and pragmatism of the Rafsanjani and Khatami eras.
Permanent collection
This is a list of artists featured in the permanent collection at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.
Ansel Easton Adams: Canyon de Chelly Yaacov Agam: more than 10 oil and acrylic works Aydin Aghdashloo:ارزش 2.5میلیارد دلاری گنجینه خارجی موزه هنرهای معاصرتهران+عکس (in Persian) Identity: in praise of Sandro Botticelli and other works Arman: Vagues après vagues John Baldessari: several conceptual photographic works Francis Bacon: a triptych, Two Figures Lying on a Bed With Attendants, 1968 ,,Left panel and right panel of the triptych "Two Figures Lying on a Bed With Attendants" can be viewed; the central panel is deemed too racy by the museum to show en salle... and Reclining man with sculpture, 1961 Francis-Bacon-Reclining-man-with-sculpture.jpg, article : Iran Undecided About Exhibition Of Its World-Class Artworks In Europe (ifpnews.com) Giacomo Balla: Futurist drawing, Figure in Movement, 1913 Bernd and Hilla Becher: several photographic works Max Beckmann: Max Bill: Rhythmus im Raum (Multiplied by Space), red granite, 1947-1948 Georges Braque: painting Guitare, Fruits et Pichet, 1927, and bronze sculpture Hymen, 1939-1957 Alexander Calder: "The Orange Fish” mobile (aka “Ogunquit"), 1946, and Prickly Pear stabile, 1964 Mary Cassatt: drypoint and aquatint print, Peasant Mother and Child, 1895 Marc Chagall: Family With Cock Eduardo Chillida: Estela a Pablo Neruda (Homage to Pablo Neruda), 1974 Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Scale model of "Wrapped Reichstag", 1977 Salvador Dali: Edgar Degas: a version of his Dancers Willem de Kooning: Light in August, 1946 Note: Woman III, 1953, was de-accessioned and traded in 1994 for a rare 16th century Persian manuscript of the Tahmasbi Shahnameh, the Book of Kings, containing precious miniatures Robert Delaunay: lithograph from the Windows series, related to the painting La Fenêtre, 1912 (Musée de Grenoble) André Derain: Fauvist painting L'Âge d'or (Golden Age), 1905 Jim Dine: Jean Dubuffet: unknown title Marcel Duchamp: study (1911–13) for The Large Glass, 1915 André Dunoyer de Segonzac: Don Eddy: Bumper Section XIII, 1970 James Ensor: Mariage des Masques, 1926 Max Ernst: Capricorn, 1944 Max Ernst, Capricorn , tmoca.com. and Histoire Naturelle, 1923 Seyed Mohammad Ehsai: Calligraphy Painting Toranj? Parvaneh Etemadi: Vases, 1977 Dan Flavin: Untitled, 1967 William Henry Fox Talbot: photogenic drawing of a Single Fern, photographic negative print on salted paper, 1836-37Photogenic drawing of a Single Fern, page from the Album di disegni fotogenici (1839-1840) by William Henry Fox Talbot British & (likely) Sebastiano Tassinari (metmuseum.org) Mansour Ghandriz: Untitled, 1963 Paul Gauguin: Nature Morte à l’estampe japonaise (Still Life with Head-Shaped Vase and Japanese Woodcut), 1889 Alberto Giacometti: 1 painting, Portrait of Isaku Yanaihara, 1960 Isaku-Yanaihara.jpg article : Iran Undecided About Exhibition Of Its World-Class Artworks In Europe - Iran Front Page (ifpnews.com) and 4 bronze sculptures, a.o. Standing Woman I, 1960,Alberto Giacometti, Standing Woman , tmoca.com. La Cage, 1965-66 and Walking Man I, 1956-60 Alberto Giacometti, Walking Man 1 , tmoca.com. Gilbert & George: Mental 6, 1976 Adolph Gottlieb: Black & Black Marcos Grigorian: unknown title George Grosz: The Unexpected Guest George-Grosz-The-unexpected-guest.jpg article : Iran Undecided About Exhibition Of Its World-Class Artworks In Europe (ifpnews.com) Javad Hamidi: Composition Richard Hamilton: Duane Hanson: Boxers aka In Honor of Muhammad Ali, 1970 Noriyuki Haraguchi: Matter and Mind aka Oil Pool David Hockney: Untitled Edward Hopper: Mehdi Hosseini: Untitled, 1976 John Hoyland: Jasper Johns: Pinion and Passage 2, 1966 Douglas James Johnson: The Shield of Achilles, 1975 Douglas-J.-Johnson-The-shield-of-achilles.jpg article : Iran Undecided About Exhibition Of Its World-Class Artworks In Europe (ifpnews.com) Donald Judd: Stacks Wassily Kandinsky: Tensions Claires, 1937 Abbas Kiarostami:Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker | MoMA retrospective, 2007 Franz Kline: Untitled, 1955 František Kupka: Farideh Lashai: Composition, 1997 Fernand Léger: Paysage (Landscape), 1913 Fernand-Léger-Paysage-landscape.jpg article : Iran Undecided About Exhibition Of Its World-Class Artworks In Europe (ifpnews.com) Sol LeWitt: Open Cube Roy Lichtenstein: The Melody Haunts My Reverie, 1965, Roto Broil, 1961, Brattata, 1962,Roy-Lichtenstein-Brattata.jpg article : Iran Undecided About Exhibition Of Its World-Class Artworks In Europe (ifpnews.com) and others Morris Louis: No.34, 1961 René Magritte: Le Thérapeute aka The Healer (bronze sculpture), 1967 René Magritte, The Therapeutae , tmoca.com., Marino Marini: Horse and Rider (bronze sculpture) Leyly Matine-Daftary: Portrait of Nasrin, 1966 Joan Miró: unknown title Amedeo Modigliani: Untitled Ahmad Mohammadpour: Calligraphy Painting Bahman Mohasses: Tryst, 1964 and Untitled, 1975 Claude Monet: Vue de Giverny, 1886 Henry Moore: bronze sculptures Two–Pieces Reclining Figure, 1969-70 Henry Moore, Two–Pieces Reclining Figure , tmoca.com. Three–Pieces Reclining Figure, 1968-69 Henry Moore, Three–Pieces Reclining Figure , tmoca.com. and Working Model for Oval with Points, 1968-69 Giorgio Morandi: Noreen Motamed: Edvard Munch: Self-portrait, 1895 Jules Pascin: Peter Phillips: Pablo Picasso: Baboon and Young (bronze sculpture), Secrets (Confidences) or Inspiration (tapestry) and several paintings a.o. : The Painter and His Model, 1927 and Fenêtre ouverte sur la rue de Penthièvre, 1920 Faramarz Pilaram: Calligraphic Painting, 1975 Camille Pissarro: Houses at Knokke, 1894 Michelangelo Pistoletto: Green Curtain, 1967 Jackson Pollock: Mural on Indian Red Ground, 1950 Arnaldo Pomodoro: Rotante primo sezionale n. 3 (bronze sculpture), 1967-1975 Maurice Prendergast: Robert Rauschenberg: Narcissus Convoy, 1977 Man Ray: The Last Object, 1932-42 (Dada sculpture) Ad Reinhardt: Abstract Painting, 1962