Picasso masterpieces go on display for the first time in Iran after decades hidden away in a vault

The exhibition “offers another perspective on Iranian society and culture, one rarely highlighted outside Iran,” one art expert told NBC News.

By Amin Khodadadi and Astha Rajvanshi

TEHRAN, Iran — They’ve been hidden away in a vault for over three decades, but last week, more than two dozen masterpieces by Pablo Picasso were unveiled to the public for the first time in Iran.

Spanning different periods of the Spanish painter and sculptor’s life, the new exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA) comprises 26 iconic works including “Portrait of a Man,” “Cry of War” and “Echo of Sorrow.”

“The Painter and His Model,” Picasso’s 1927 work and the largest canvas from his post-cubism period, is also on display, along with 53 other paintings. Twelve of the 26 aquatint prints from “La Tauromaquia,” a rare portfolio he produced in 1957, showcase his deep fascination with bullfighting culture in Spain.

They are part of a remarkable modern art collection of nearly 4,000 works held by the museum in Iran’s capital, most of which have remained out of the public eye since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

“The themes of our exhibitions often depend on showcasing part of our collection, and currently we are focusing on works by Picasso, a name that doesn’t need an introduction,” Hassan Nouferasti, TMoCA’s public relations director, told NBC News on Wednesday.

Alongside Picasso, the museum displays other works, including paintings by prominent American artists such as Alexander Calder, Nouferasti said.

“It can’t be better than this,” said Parisa Hosseini, a 33-year-old painter and musician who visited the exhibition after it opened to the public on Wednesday.

At an event Tuesday evening, Nadereh Rezai, Iran’s deputy culture minister for artistic affairs, was quoted by the state-controlled Tehran Times newspaper as saying, “artists like Picasso, with their unique styles, revolutionized global art.”

“Contemporary art in Iran also holds a significant place, deeply influencing our culture and artistic identity,” she added.

The Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, also known as TMoCA, is among the largest art museums in Iran.Amin Khodadadi / NBC News

Inaugurated in 1977 by Farah Pahlavi, Iran’s former queen, the museum was a “pioneer in the region” in collecting modern and contemporary art from Europe and America, according to Sussan Babaie, a professor of Islamic and Iranian arts at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.

“That collection was enormously important in bringing attention to the then-vibrant art scene in Tehran,” she told NBC News in an email Thursday.

The museum’s collection included paintings, prints, drawings, photographs and sculptures by the likes of van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Degas and Dali, housed “in a purpose-built modernist structure,” she added.

But after the monarchy was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution and Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini became the country’s supreme leader, many of TMoCA’s works were locked away as clerics deemed them inappropriate, citing nudity and other sensitive themes.

The museum has slowly reclaimed its place in Iran’s cultural life, and in 2012, it put on a first-of-its-kind show featuring works by pop artists Andy Warhol, David Hockney and Roy Lichtenstein, among others.

Last year, TMoCA put on the highly successful “Eye to Eye” exhibition, extended twice due to public demand, where it showcased long-hidden works by Western artists from its collection, which was valued at somewhere between $3 billion to $4 billion in 2021 by the museum’s architect and former director, Kamran Diba.

Citing a single Jackson Pollock piece that is estimated to be worth around $600 million to $700 million, Nouferasti, TMoCA’s public relations director, said it was “difficult to put a price on it.”

“The significance of this collection goes beyond numbers,” he added.

For Americans, the new Picasso exhibition will remain out of reach. In addition to long-standing restrictions, the State Department issued a travel advisory in August warning citizens not to travel to Iran due to political unrest in the region.

But in Iran, where there are strict laws regarding women’s dress, including the mandatory hijab, and restrictions on music and public gatherings, the exhibition at TMoCA “offers another perspective on Iranian society and culture, one rarely highlighted outside Iran,” according to Hamid Keshmirshekan, an art historian at London’s SOAS University.

He said it exhibited “the energy and vibrancy of the country’s contemporary cultural scene,” while underlining “the younger generation’s determination to participate in global cultural dialogues, despite the significant challenges they face culturally, intellectually and economically.”

Amin Khodadadi reported from Tehran, and Astha Rajvanshi from London.

Astha Rajvanshi is a reporter for NBC News Digital, based in London. Previously, she worked as a staff writer covering international news for TIME.