[img width= height=]http://www.musicman.com/00pic/lalehha.jpg[/img]
This 20" x 27.5" poster could be called an early "15 Khordad" poster because of its emphasis on that date in the Iranian calendar. 15 Khordad is noted every year in Iran as an important anniversary and is also the namesake of a number of public places. The first 15 Khordad (15 Khordad 1342 or 3 June 1963) is mentioned near the bottom pf the poster, but the poster is actually read right to left from the top down: "The tulips of victory for 15 Khordad 1358 [5 June 1979] have grown out of the bloody uprising of 15 Khordad 1342 [5 June 1963]." The lower left corner says "Justice Society." The poster is not signed by an artist or dated but it must have been printed in 1979. The first 15 Khordad on 3 June 1963 was the day of a massive public protest against the arrest of Ayatollah Khomeini by the shah of Iran. A Wikipedia article titled "June 5, 1963 demonstrations in Iran" gives more background. The poster is making the claim that the people who were killed by the shah's police in 1963 watered with their blood the victory of the revolution in 1979. This is an example of the kind of government propaganda that gets masses of people killed everywhere in the world; a huge collection of posters could be assembled that have messages like this. I have this one because I inherited it from a professor who was in Iran at the time. This kind of art using images of blood and tulips was very common in Iran in those days; such motifs are still used but there don't seem to be nearly as many people in Iran now who dream of becoming religious martyrs. They're more likely to dream of getting themselves killed throwing out the mullahs.
