TEHRAN -- The winners of World Award of Monotheistic Religions exhibition were praised during the closing ceremony at Imam Ali (AS) Religious Arts Museum here Monday night.

Organized by Tehran Municipality’s Art and Culture Organization, the exhibition was the first international poster competition.

In an address to the closing gala, the award’s art director Ebrahim Haqiqi praised the organizers and young artists for their cooperation that helped hold the event successfully.

The jury selected Elham Mahutchi (Iran), Shervin Faridnejad (Iran), and Micheal Jandra (Poland) as the top three respectively while Alexander Mikola (Ukraine) and Reza Mostafazadeh (Iran) received the Special and Honorary awards respectively.

The works were picked up by the Iranian jury, including Aidin Aghdashlu, Ebrahim Haqiqi, Mohammad-Hossein Halimi, Hossein Khosrojerdi, and Farshid Mesqali out of 40 items.

Jury members Sadik Karamustafa from Turkey, Rene Wanner from Switzerland, and Alejandro Magallanes from Mexico also contributed.

This year’s competition focused on the pictorial representation of religious leaders’ biographies and the prophets’ teachings.

The award were designed on the assumption of the basic unity of religious faiths in the worship of God and the rejection of the demon of pride and oppression as well as the ideal of bringing about a moral and just society inspired by the teachings of prophets.

Artists from Turkey, India, Czech Republic, Poland, Mexico, the U.S., France, Russia, Ukraine, Switzerland, the UAE, and Germany competed at the event.