TEHRAN, Iran — Walk into Tehran’s famed Golestan Gallery on a typical day, and you will find Lili Golestan busy at her desk speaking on the phone, arranging a series of new works or telling stories. She has spent a lifetime with Iran’s most renowned poets, artists and intellectuals, and she is a woman with endless stories.
The Golestan Gallery is larger than life. It is one of Tehran’s most prestigious galleries, and its owner is one of the city’s most well-known cultural figures. The gallery occupies a street-level space with glass doors in northern Tehran’s scenic Darrous district, once known as the “Bride of Shemiran” for its once-bountiful fruit orchards and cool summer days.
