Awards

• Commended for Benjamin Franklin Award (Crafts & Hobbies) 2022

Overview

Winner of the Silver Medal in the IBPA Book Awards for Hobbies and Crafts, Persian Locks: 1500 Years of Iranian Padlocks by Parviz Tanavoli is a magnificent exploration of Iran’s ancient and enduring lockmaking tradition. Across 144 pages and more than 500 color photographs and technical illustrations, Tanavoli presents an extraordinary collection of antique Persian padlocks—works of both utility and art—documenting their evolution over fifteen centuries. In Iran, the padlock developed in remarkable diversity of shapes, materials, and mechanical ingenuity, far surpassing the variety found in Europe. This book reveals those traditions through meticulous documentation, visual clarity, and historical context. Each lock is carefully catalogued and illustrated, with detailed line drawings that show the workings of barbed-spring, helical-spring, notched-shackle, hook, and revolving-catch mechanisms. Dates and places of origin are noted wherever possible. The collection featured in Persian Locks was first introduced to the American public by the Smithsonian Institution in 1976 under the title Locks from Iran: Pre-Islamic to Twentieth Century. This expanded and revised edition—produced between 2019 and 2020—adds new text and a wealth of previously unpublished images acquired during the forty-four years since the original publication. Tanavoli, recognized internationally as Iran’s foremost modern sculptor and a founder of the Saqakhaneh art movement, brings both the eye of an artist and the precision of a historian to his study. His fascination with locks stems from their sculptural beauty and symbolic resonance, elements that have profoundly influenced his own artistic work. Printed in hardcover (25.5 × 21.5 cm), this lavishly produced volume is as much a work of art as the masterpieces it documents—a vital reference for collectors, museums, metal artists, and historians of Persian art and design.

Full Product Details

9781733325011

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Author Information

Parviz Tanavoli, the renowned and foremost Iranian artist, is known not just because of his role in Iranian modern art but for his very wide range of activities in history, art, culture and Iranian heritage. More than six decades of working as sculptor, painter, printmaker, writer, collector, researcher and patron of modern and contemporary art makes him the ""Renaissance Man"" of his motherland, Iran. Most of his research and collections are focused on tribal and commoners' art, their beliefs and its role in people's everyday lives. His books on subjects such as Talismans, Persian Locks, Kohl Containers, Scales and Weights, and more than 10 books on Persian tribal rugs and carpets, shows his knowledge, understanding and interest in the importance of people's art. Tanavoli had an important role in the founding of Saqakhaneh, the most important Iranian artistic movement begun in the early 1960s. His intellectual support and his ideas of importing popular culture and common people's life elements into art which, back in those days was limited to the elites of society, the highly educated and aristocrats, shows his deep feeling of culture and cultural heritage as well as modern art movements all over the world. Locks have played an important role in Tanavoli's sculpture to an extent that they have become part of the anatomy of his art. For more info see: www.Tanavoli.com

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