Parviz Tanavoli

Parviz Tanavoli is an Iranian sculptor now residing in Canada. He was born in 1937 in Tehran where he remained until he graduated from Tehran’s School of Fine Arts in 1955. He then travelled to Italy where he continued his studies in Carrera and Milan. He later worked in Milan under Italian artist Marino.Marini.

Upon graduating from the Brera Academy of Milan in 1959, he returned to Iran and won the Royal Awards in the 2nd Tehran Biennale in 1960. In the same year he founded his first studio, the Atelier Kaboud, which acted as both a studio space for him to work in as well as an exhibition space for him and other contemporaries.

Tanavoli taught sculpture for three years at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He then returned to Iran and assumed the directorship of the sculpture department at the University of Tehran, a position he held for 18 years until 1979, when he retired from teaching. He has held solo exhibitions in Iran, Europe, Dubai, United States and Canada and participated in numerous biennales and group exhibitions including, Contemporary Art from the Islamic World, Barbican Centre, London, 1989; Continental Shift, Museums of Aachen, Maastricht, Heerlen and Liège, 2000; Picturing Iran: Art, Society and Revolution, Grey Art

Gallery, New York, 2002; and Word into Art, British Museum, London, 2006. His works are housed in international private and public collections, including The British Museum, London; Grey Art Gallery, New York University Collection; Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota; Esfahan City Center; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Nelson Rockefeller Collection, New York; Museum of Modern Art, Vienna; Olympic Park, Seoul; DIFC, Dubai; and Royal Society of Fine Arts, Amman.