During her reign as the first crowned Empress in Iranian history, Empress Farah Pahlavi dedicated her life to serving the Iranian people, creating and curating museums and festivals across the country. With a keen eye—and working with a cast of international curators and art dealers —the Empress amassed one of the world’s greatest collections of modern art for her country, including works by van Gogh, Picasso, Bacon, Rothko and de Kooning. Her Majesty visited the studios of artists like Henry Moore and Marc Chagall, and commissioned works directly from a young Andy Warhol, who paid a visit to the Royal Palace; her vision was to establish her country as a cultural vanguard and to inspire and empower a new generation of Iranian artists. However, in 1979, the Revolution turned the country upside down and the Iran that emerged from the rubble was almost unrecognizable. Iran Modern: The Empress of Art uncovers the lost story of Farah Pahlavi’s epic journey from Empress to exile, and unearths the near-forgotten collection of contemporary art she left behind.
All Images courtesy of Assouline
Viola Raikhel-Bolot is co-founder of Vanishing Pictures Productions, and Managing Director and co-founder of 1858 Ltd Art Advisory, an international firm that works with some of the biggest names in modern art and collecting. Advising private banks, family offices, fashion and luxury brands and museums. She maintains advisory positions across the arts and is regularly called upon in the international press as a contributor to the Financial Times, CNBC, CNN and Bloomberg television news as an expert on the international art market.
Miranda Darling is a writer and co-founder of Vanishing Pictures Productions. She has published two thrillers and a novel and worked on several documentaries as a writer and consultant. Before reading English and Modern Languages at Oxford, Miranda travelled the world as a fashion model and worked for PAPER magazine in New York. She has a Masters in Strategic Studies and Defence from the ANU (GSSD), and was an adjunct scholar at a public policy think tank (CIS), where she published widely on the topic of new security threats. She writes regularly for several magazines.
Vanishing Pictures Productions was founded by Miranda and Viola to tell the stories of the women who have wielded soft power to change the course of history. The stories Vanishing Pictures tell in books and film focus on the nexus between art and politics, told through the lives of the extraordinary women at the heart of them.
Image courtesy of Assouline
Foreword by HIH Empress Farah Pahlavi, text by Viola Raikhel-Bolot and Miranda Darling
14 x 17 in – 35.5 x 43 cm | 200 pages | over 100 illustrations | hardcover with jacket | ISBN: 9781614286349 | $845 – €845 – £650 BUY
