Collection of five color 1943 World War II propaganda leaflets, each measuring 13.5 x 9, done by British artist Kimon Evan Marengo for the British Ministry of Information, each with Persian/Farsi text in a square contained in the poster, and the artist’s printed initials in one corner of each poster. These five posters tell the story of Hitler, by adapting it to the five scenes from the Shahnameh of Ferdowski. Hitler is depicted as the mythical figure Zahak, an evil king who had two snakes (drawn here with the faces of Mussolini and Tojo) growing out of his shoulders. KEM prepared the posters between March and October 1942 to coincide with the Teheran Conference, held in Iran between November 28–December 2, 1943, at which was he was an official observer. During the conference, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin signed a Declaration on Iran that committed the three powers to Iran's independence. In very good condition, with some scattered light wrinkling and toning, as well as scattered dampstaining. Egyptian-born and Oxford-educated, KEM produced some 3000 anti-Nazi propaganda drawings for the British Ministry of Information during World War II. His fluency in European and Middle Eastern languages made his artwork especially useful for wartime distribution in Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, and Iran, where fear of German influence had prompted British and Russian occupation of the oil-rich country. RR Auction COA.
