Poet Squeezing Lemon
- Artist: Parviz Tanavoli
- Date: 1974
- Medium: Screenprint on paper
- Dimensions: image: 698 × 491 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
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About this artwork
This is “Poet Squeezing Lemon” by Parviz Tanavoli, created in 1974 as a screenprint on paper. The image shows a seated poet holding a bright lemon, his posture suggesting a careful, almost ritualistic squeeze. Tanavoli made this work after returning to Iran from Europe in the 1960s, when the country was wary of Western figurative styles. He blended symbolic gestures, calligraphic marks, and everyday objects into his art. His fascination with Persian artefacts—carpets, locks believed to protect, and religious posters—feeds the fragmented forms that appear here. The lemon itself hints at Persian poetry’s recurring motif of the sour and the sweet, and the figure’s posture references popular religious practices. The print feels both abstract and narrative, a snapshot of cultural identity played out through a simple, everyday act.
See it in person
Poet Squeezing Lemon is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
