© Firooz Zahedi/courtesy Leila Heller Gallery, New York

“Firooz Zahedi: Elizabeth Taylor in Iran”, on view through October 29, 2011, at Leila Heller Gallery in New York, presents an insider‘s look at Zahedi’s experience of traveling with the screen legend to his home country Iran in 1976. The series includes sumptuous photographs of Elizabeth Taylor posing in odalisque costumes and fashionable chadors. The series was recently on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and has been loaned by LACMA to Leila Heller Gallery for this exhibition. Before her death last March, Elizabeth Taylor said to her close friend Firooz, “Seeing these photographs brings back fond memories of my visit to Iran, a country blessed with a rich and colorful culture that dates back many centuries.” Zahedi, who now lives in Los Angeles, started his career in New York during the mid-1970s working with Andy Warhol and Interview. He is known for his portrait work for publications including Vanity Fair, Town & Country, Esquire, InStyle, and Time.

Above: Elizabeth Taylor Wearing a Chador at the Shah Cheragh Shrine, Shiraz , 1976

© Firooz Zahedi/courtesy Leila Heller Gallery, New York. Above: Elizabeth Taylor Dressed as an Odalisque I, 1976.