Beschreibung:

"Kem" Kimon E Marengo. Set of 5 World War II propaganda posters depicting adaptations of Shahnameh scenes, in Farsi, printed posters on paper [London (for the Ministry of Information), 1942] 5 leaves (of 6 original), a few light creases to extremities, some scattered spotting and light surface dust, fair condition, versos blank, 4 of them mounted on paper, each 342 x 228mm. Marengo was an Egyptian, who worked in Paris as a satirical cartoonist. At the outbreak of World War II, he was studying in Exeter College, Oxford, and turned his talents to aiding the Ministry of Information in London, producing over 3000 images on behalf of the British war effort. The Germans were increasingly using propaganda in Iran, and so Marengo was tasked with devising counter-measures. He drew on that nation's rich manuscript heritage, and repainted six images from the Shahnameh, replacing key figures with likenesses of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin overseeing the downfall of Hitler. These were initially produced as posters, and then as booklets of postcards, and dispersed during the Tehran conference when the Allied powers signed a declaration that committed them to Iran's independence. As mundane objects, produced to be pasted to walls and billboards they very rarely survive in good or even presentable condition, and despite their printing in the UK, the British Library have only the postcards.