My Iranian Stamp Collection

As a child, living in America in the mid eighties, I found myself collecting stamps that arrived on letters and packages from Iran. My grandmother showed me the process of soaking the envelopes in warm water and how to carefully peel off the stamps.

After many years I rediscovered my stamps and became very aware of the extraordinary political content these beautifully bold illustrations possessed. They are from an era that saw the birth of The Islamic Republic of Iran which coincided with a brutal eight year war with it's neighbour, Iraq. The stamps seemed like a very functional means of propaganda within Iran itself and as a proclamation to the rest of the world of the values of the new republic. I wonder if the postman ever noticed the bleeding tulips or the sword of Islam chopping off the vetoing hand of the UN.

Photographed in 2005