Iran to loan masterpiece to London

LONDON, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- A masterpiece painting by British artist Francis Bacon will be sent from Iran to London for an exhibition of Bacon's work at the Tate Britain Gallery.

The painting had been purchased by the late Shah Reza of Iran but was kept out of sight by the current Muslim fundamentalist government as "unsuitable" art.

Tate Britain Director Stephen Deuchar said Tuesday that the 1968 "Two Figures Lying on a Bed With Attendants" will be the centerpiece of the exhibit, which opens in April. The three-panel painting has been kept in storage in Teheran's Museum of Contemporary Art along with works by Pablo Picasso, Willem de Kooning, and Andy Warhol that were purchased by the shah before his overthrow in 1979.

In return for the loan of the Bacon, the British Council, an arm of the Foreign Office, has organized an exhibition titled "British Sculpture in the 20th Century" that will open in February at the Teheran museum with works by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Damien Hirst, and Anthony Caro, some of them loaned by the Tate. Deuchar said he hoped the exchange would mark the beginning of other cultural contacts between Iran and Britain.