The men bent in prayer to God and the government airplanes arrived. – Historic Print
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
A window into the past: The men bent in prayer to God and the government airplanes arrived., preserved in this historic drawing. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.
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The men bent in prayer to God and the government airplanes arrived.
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Worshippers kneel in prayer while government airplanes come down over them, so the sacred and the official seem to share the same sky. Ardeshir Mohassess, an Iranian cartoonist known for sharp social criticism, drew this pen-and-ink sheet in 1977, when the Pahlavi government was pursuing rapid modernization and many Iranians felt religious life and state power were pulling in different directions. The drawing was reproduced in *Life in Iran* (1994) and shown in a 2008 exhibition of his work at the Asia Society in New York.
| Created / published | 1977 |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 drawing : pen & ink ; 45.7 x 60.9 cm. (sheet) |
| Genre | Satires Iranian 1970-1980.Ink drawings 1970-1980. |
| Notes | Reproduced with alternative caption in: Life in Iran / Ardeshir Mohassess. Washington, D.C. : Mage Publishers, 1994, p. 35. (NC1729.M83A4 1994) Exhibited: Ardeshir Mohassess: Satirist and Social Critic, Asia Society and Museum, New York, New York, 2008. |
| Subjects | Airplanes--1970-1980. Politics & government--Iran--1970-1980. Prayer--Iran--1970-1980. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 4,096 × 3,281 px · prints to 14 × 11 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-179747 |
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