What is it about?
This article explores how Latin American revolutionary art—especially Mexican muralism—shaped Iran’s visual culture during the years leading up to the 1977–1979 Revolution. While many people associate Iranian revolutionary art with Islamic themes that emerged after 1979, this study shows that the earliest revolutionary murals in Iran were created by young, mostly leftist artists inspired by Latin American models. The article traces how ideas and techniques from artists such as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco reached Iran through teachers, translators, and exhibitions. It highlights the role of key Iranian figures—Mohammad Hassan Sciddel, Hannibal Alkhas, and Mehdi Sahabi—who introduced muralism and revolutionary visual culture to students and the broader artistic community. By examining murals, paintings, and archival materials from the 1960s and 1970s, the article reconstructs a largely forgotten history: the presence of Latin American-inspired murals in Iran before and during the revolution, many of which were later removed or painted over. This hidden visual heritage reveals a moment when Iranian artists used public art to express demands for justice, equality, anti-imperialism, and solidarity with global liberation movements.
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Why is it important?
The article challenges the common assumption that Iranian revolutionary art emerged only after 1979 and was primarily Islamic in character. It demonstrates instead that Iran’s revolutionary visual culture was deeply connected to global South–South artistic exchanges, especially with Latin America. Recovering this history has three major implications: • It repositions Iran within global art history, showing how Iranian artists engaged with international anti-colonial and leftist movements. • It reveals the diversity of voices and ideologies that shaped the revolution, beyond the dominant post-1979 Islamic narrative. • It preserves the memory of murals and artworks that have been lost, offering new sources for understanding Iran’s political and cultural transformations. By documenting these overlooked connections, the article contributes to broader debates on decolonization, transnational artistic networks, and the political power of public art.
Perspectives
The article forms part of a broader research trajectory in which I explore the cultural, political, and artistic connections linking Iran with Latin America during the Long Global Sixties and the revolutionary decade that followed. Across my work, I show how ideas, images, and texts from Latin American movements — from muralism to Third‑Worldist thought — circulated in Iran and shaped the imagination of a generation of young revolutionaries. By reconstructing these overlooked exchanges, I aim to highlight Iran’s place within wider South–South networks of solidarity, anti‑imperialism, and artistic experimentation. This chapter contributes to that larger perspective by recovering the forgotten presence of Latin American visual culture in the streets and studios of Iran’s 1977–1979 Revolution.
Raffaele Mauriello
Allameh Tabataba'i University
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This page is a summary of: Latin America’s Visual Culture and Art in Iran in the Advent of the Islamic Revolution: Lost and Hidden Murals of Iran’s 1977–1979 Revolution, February 2026, De Gruyter,
DOI: 10.1163/9789004755253_009.
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