Stay updated with breaking news from Donna Stein. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
The Empress and I: How an Ancient Empire Collected, Rejected, and Rediscovered Modern Art, by Donna Stein, 78, details her time working for Iran's Farah Pahlavi.
An exiled Empress, a score-settling curator, and $3 billion worth of modern art - need we say more?
Read an excerpt from Donna Stein's new memoir, "The Empress and I: How an Ancient Empire Collected, Rejected and Rediscovered Modern Art."
“Today, even if some Iranians don’t like modern art, they know it’s valuable.”
The story of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMoCA) has been irresistible to journalists for four decades, laden as it is with period glamour, political intrigue and eye-catching art. To briefly recap: in the mid-1970s, the third wife of the Shah of Iran, Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi, was patron of a crash museum-building programme. Surging oil prices had made Iran’s ruling classes rich, and Western economies, and therefore the art market, weak. In October 1977, TMoCA opened for Pahlavi’s birthday with a hastily but deftly assembled collection of Modern masterpieces from Gauguin to Giaco...