TEHRAN — The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tehran opened an exhibit of six works by three American Pop artists of the 1960s, chosen mainly for their anti-war themes. The exhibit, titled "Art and War," features pieces by Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Indiana, and James Rosenquist, and will be on display until May 10.

"The museum selected pieces that were either shaped by the experience of war or created as reactions to wars," said Reza Dabirinezhad, head of the museum. He said that each week new works related to the theme will be brought out of the collection for display.

Rosenquist's "F-111" is a collage dating to the era of the U.S. bombardment of Vietnam that critiques America's military-industrial complex with images of a warplane's fuselage, a nuclear mushroom cloud, and a child's face. Lichtenstein's "Brattata" is a painting based on a comic book panel depicting a fighter plane pilot shooting down an enemy craft.

The works come from the museum's large collection of masterpieces of American and European modern art acquired by the wife of the former shah in the 1970s. The government of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi built the museum and purchased Cubist, Surrealist, Impressionist, Abstract, and Pop artworks during that decade, with Farah Pahlavi, the former Empress of Iran, largely selecting the works. The collection includes pieces by Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Mark Rothko, Francis Bacon, and David Hockney.

Two years after the museum opened, the shah was toppled and theocratic rule by Shiite clerics was installed in Iran. The modern art collection was packed away in the museum's vault and remained untouched for decades to avoid offending Islamic values or creating the appearance of catering to Western sensibilities. Since 2012, the museum has occasionally removed some pieces from storage for temporary exhibits.

The collection is believed to be worth several billion dollars. Even with Iran facing cash shortages under Western sanctions, museum officials have ensured that the collection is not sold. In 1994, Iran traded a Willem de Kooning painting from the collection for a manuscript of the Persian epic Shahnameh from an American foundation.

Museums and many other cultural activities have been shut down in Iran during the current war. A ceasefire in place since early April allowed the museum to reopen, though only a few works were put on display in case war resumed and the pieces had to be returned to storage. The museum is government-run and comes under the authority of the Culture Ministry.

"This state of being undecided leaves you dazed and confused, everything is up in the air. I hope everything ends well soon and we get a secure and calm life. Some of the works remind me of the scenes I saw during the war," said Mohammad Sadegh Abbasi, a visitor to the exhibit.