Parviz Tanavoli

Parviz Tanavoli (; born 1937) is an Iranian sculptor, painter, educator, and art historian. He is a pioneer within the Saqqakhaneh movement, a neo-traditionalist art movement. Tanavoli has been one of the most expensive Iranian artists in sales. Tanavoli series of sculpture work are displayed in the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at Hamline University, in the Aga Khan Museum, and as public art in Vancouver. Tanavoli has also written extensively on this history of Persian art and craftsmanship. Since 1989, Tanavoli has held dual citizenship in Iran and Canada, and has lived and worked in both Tehran, Iran and Horseshoe Bay, West Vancouver, British Columbia.

Early life and education Parviz Tanavoli was born on 24 March 1937 in Tehran. In 1952, he started his education at the Tehran School of Fine Arts (now part of the University of Tehran). He studied under sculptor Mariano Marini.

Iranian sculptor Ahad Hosseini briefly worked in Tanavoli's atelier.

Artwork

He is the main figure and the key member of the Saqqakhaneh group of artists who share a common popular aesthetic, according to the scholar Karim Emami. He has been influenced heavily by his country's history and culture, and traditions and has always been fascinated with locksmithing. Tanavoli was once a cultural advisor to the Shahbanu Farah Pahlavi. Tanavoli is known for his es, three-dimensional representations of the Persian word for 'nothing'. \

In 2003, Tanavoli turned his Tehran house into the "Museum of Parviz Tanavoli," showcasing his personal art collection, which was only open for a few months due to political issues in Iran. Rasht 29 Club was named after the street address, and it was a popular hangout amongst artists of the time including Marcos Grigorian, Hossein Zenderoudi, Sadegh Tabrizi, Faramarz Pilaram, Sohrab Sepehri, Massoud Arabshahi, Yadollah Royai, Nader Naderpour, Reza Baraheni, Esmail Shahroudi, Ahmadreza Ahmadi, Bijan Elahi, Ebrahim Golestan, Hageer Daruish, Kamran Shirdel, Sadeq Chubak, Karl Schlamminger, and others. In 2008, his work, The Wall (Oh Persepolis), an almost 2-meter tall bronze sculpture covered in incomprehensible hieroglyphs fetched USD 2.84 million at a Dubai Christie's sale, which was an auction record for an artist of Middle Eastern origins.

Exhibitions The most recent solo exhibition of Parviz Tanavoli, "Parviz Tanavoli: Poets, Locks, Cages", took place from 1 July 2023, to 19 November 2023, showcasing a comprehensive range of his works spanning six decades. This exhibition, held at Vancouver Art Gallery, provided a thorough retrospective of his career.

Prior to this, his solo exhibition was in 2019 at the West Vancouver Art Museum entitled "Oh Nightingale". Before that, he had another solo exhibition in 2017 at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art based on his Lions works and Lion collection.

In 2015, after four decades, Davis Museum at Wellesley College organized the first solo exhibition of Tanavoli's work in the US.

In 2003, he had a major retrospective at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Prior to that he had held solo exhibitions in Austria, Italy, Germany, United States and Britain. Tanavoli has been in group exhibitions internationally.

His work has been displayed at the Tate Modern, British Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Grey Art Gallery - New York University, the Isfahan City Center, Nelson Rockefeller Collection, New York, Olympic Park, Seoul, South Korea, the Royal Museum of Jordan, the Museum of Modern Art, Vienna, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Hamline University, St. Paul and Shiraz University, Iran.

Politics and art In 2005, he created a small piece of sculpture called Heech in a Cage to protest the conditions of the American-held prisoners at Guantanamo Bay detainment camp and in 2006, began work on his piece to honor the victims of the Israeli-Lebanon war.

A day before Tanavoli was due to speak at the British Museum in 2016, authorities in Iran confiscated his passport, preventing him from leaving the country, accusing him of "disturbing the public peace". Tanavoli explained that "I have not done anything wrong. I spent the whole day at the passport office, but no one told me anything, nor did anyone at the airport. I'm not a political person, I'm merely an artist."

In October 2020, the former Mina Street in the Niavaran neighbourhood was renamed Parviz Tanavoli by the municipality of Tehran.