Poet and Beloved

Following upon a centuries-old prohibition against figurative sculpture in Muslim Persia (modern Iran), Parviz Tanavoli is widely viewed today as the father of modern Iranian sculpture. Tanavoli studied bronze casting in Italy in the late 1950s, and since the early 1960s the artist has sought to reconcile distinctly Iranian forms of popular culture and traditional Persian court poetry with the language of international contemporary art, including American Pop Art. “In my view Persian poetry was the purest emanation of the human soul…” exclaimed Parviz Tanavoli, whose Poet and Beloved echoes in its details the grills and locks found on many Muslim holy shrines in Iran. For Tanavoli, the Poet represents freedom, the ability to communicate that which is essential, that which is beloved. He has stated that these are ideas that are perhaps more easily expressed in abstract form: “That’s why my human figures, as you see, remind one of a human body, but do not resemble one.”