A long way
By Rene Wanner

When Morteza Momayez was born, 70 years ago, there were no posters in Persia, as we know them today. The first theater posters, with text only, had been pasted to the walls of Tehran in 1926. In 1928, two Armenian immigrants from Russia started to paint movie posters that were placed in front of the cinemas. In 1935, the chief of police argued with the prime minister about the proper Persian word for “advertisement”. In Tehran, there were few telephones, no airplane tickets, no television, no computers, no Internet, no graphic designers

Now, almost a year after Morteza Momayez’ death, our world has changed a lot. I suddenly became aware of how far graphic design in Iran has come when a notable Iranian poster artist won a prize at an international poster biennial this summer, and Guy Schockaert, a former ICOGRADA president, tried to call his studio in Tehran while the award ceremony was still going on. He did not get through because the artist was in the Far East opening a personal exhibition. The little incident made me think of Morteza Momayez, and the role he played in paving the way from there to here.