Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Hrant Avakyan (1900-1990)

Still Life
 Hrant Avakyan was an Armenian painter and art collector from Romania.Hrant exhibited in many exhibitions of paintings in Bucharest (1928.1943, 1957, 1963, 1967 and 1975) and Yerevan (Armenia) (1960 and 1962).

Monday, April 23, 2012

Migirdich Givanian (1848–1906)

 Migirdich Givanian was son of Sultan Abdülmecid's court violinist, who studied art at Guillemet's academy and became a renowned painter of nocturnal and romantic landscapes.

Decoration by Migirdic Givanian
 Interior halls of Ottoman royal palaces decorated with brilliant arabesques painted in blue, orange, yellow, and gold, executed by Migirdich Givanian.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Hovsep Pushman (1877-1966)

Hovsep Pushman, or Pushminian, was an Armenian American artist known for his beautiful paintings of women.Hovsep Pushman came by his oriental learnings by birth and travel. Born in Western Armenia, Pushman studied at the Royal Academy of Art (  Sanayi-i Nefise Mekteb-i Âlisi  ) in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) in the declining days of the old Ottoman Empire.

Silence, 62,2 x 48,9 cm

Then in Paris he became a pupil of Tony Robert-Fleury and Jules Lefebvre.After his student days he exhibited in the French salons, even since becoming an American citizen keeping a studio in the French capital.Hovsep Pushman's arrangements of still life are suggestive of the Eastern tradition to which he was born.In 1896 Pushman's family emigrated to Chicago, where he studied Chinese culture, immersing himself in Asian art.He opened his own studio in 1921 and, with the encouragement of Robert-Fleury, concentrated his efforts on exotic portraits and still lifes of carefully arranged objects he had collected.

Youth, 48 x 36 cm

 Pushman died on February 13, 1966, in New York City.Pushman's paintings are in the collections of many major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, the Seattle Art Museum, the San Diego Art Institute, the Houston Art Museum, and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.


Sources:
Survey of American painting:October twenty-fourth [to] December fifteenth, 1940 

Raphael Shishmanian (1885-1959)


The old brige of Espalione, 1937

Raphael Shishmanian ( or Chichmanian ) was born in Egin, in 1885.He went to Paris in 1908 to study a Painting at Academie Julian.Raphael Shishmanian was also known as Art historian, he wrote famous Armenian graphic artist Edgar Chahine's biography in 1956.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Edgar Chahine (1874-1947)

Edgar Chahine was born in 1874, probably in Vienna, to Armenian parents, and was taken as a child to Constantinople, where he lived until he was eighteen.The name Shahin ( Chahine ) means "royal falcon' in Persian (also as a borrowed word in Turkish). One of Edgar Chahine's ancestors, an artisan, is said to have got this name because he was so quick at his work. The family name was probably originally Shahinian; later the Armenian ending -ian was dropped in accordance with a not Determined to study art he travelled to Venice, where he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti under the genre painter, Antonio Paoletti and the sculptor, Antonio dal Zotto.

This picture is from Armenian Museum of France.


 He settled permanently in Paris in 1895 and, Edgar Chahine enrolled at the Academie Julian, and he exhibited at the Society of French Artists from 1896 to 1899 including the series "Life lamentable", featuring paintings of the underprivileged.In Paris, Edgar Chahine found himself neither a part of the traditional schools and academic circles nor identified with the more contemporary artists and art movements of the time.


The artist Edgar Chahine, who captured the high spirit and style of la belle époque so well, also provided one of the most realistic mirrors of the wretchedness of life at the turn of the century.He lived in Paris at a time when the contrasts between wealth and poverty, gaiety and suffering were indeed extreme. While other subjects occasionally found their way onto his etching plates, it was primarily these two opposing realities which occupied his creative energies throughout his career.



The prince of Armenian book illustrators in modern times was Edgar Chahine, that most stylish of engravers, whose incomparable, imaginative work adorns some of the best editions of French writers such as Flaubert, Barres, Colette, Huysmans and the Goncourts.Chahine was more at home with the bourgeoisie than with the aristocracy . The aristocracy appears in his plates — seen from a respectful distance. He is much ) closer both to the world of friends and the worlds of the carnival, the small artisans, tha tarts, the poor, the dispossessed.



Sources:
Edgar Chahine (1874-1947):illustrator and engraver : exhibition at the Royal Library, Stockholm, September 1975
The Armenians: a people in exile by David Marshall Lang
Edgar Chahine, la vie parisienne by Gabriel P. Weisberg

Zoltan Nuridsany (1925-1974)

Zoltan Nuridsany was born on the 22nd of August, 1925, in Romania.His father was Armenian and a mother was a Hungarian.During his secondary school years in Budapest he became a pillar of the Fine Arts Circle under the direction of the graphic artist, Nandor Nagy. In 1944, as a result of his conscious preparations, he gained admission to the College of Fine Arts.

Self-Portrait, 1940s

From 1946 on, he began to exhibit his works in the exhibitions of the so-called European School. His supporters considered him as a member of new generation of the European School and as a college student of an earnest and promissing talent. In 1948 he received a grant of the Human Academy of Rome. The works made there met with success on the Bursars' Exhibition.

Naturmorte

In Oktober of 2000, Nuridsany's works from the European School period, exhibited in Yerevan.


Source
http://www.nuridsany.hu/

Simon Hollosy (1857-1918)

Simon Hollosy was a naturalist and realist Hungarian of Armenian descent, painter.He and His Atelier Although Simon Hollosy (1857-1918) was the principal organizer of the art colony at Nagybanya. Besides him, his pupils Istvan Reti (1872-1945), Janos Thorma (1870-1938), Bela Ivanyi-Griinwald (1867-1942) and Karoly Ferenczy (1862-1917), all eminent painters painters, belonged to the founding members of the Nagybanya school of art. 

Corn Husking (1885)


 Hollosy, like most of the members, studied in Munich.Though he never visited France he later became affected with the French artistic style. While in the incipient stage of his career he selected themes from rural life and he settled into portraiture.While at Nagybanya Hollosy occupied himself with producing the first sketch to the Rakoczi March and with book illustrations.Hollosy trained a generation of eminent painters.In 1886 he opened his famous private art school in Munich which became a center for young artists from countries all over Europe.


 Sources:
 Made in Hungary: Hungarian Contributions to Universal Culture by Andrew Le Simon
 The good and simple life: artist colonies in Europe and America by Michael Jacobs
 Beyond impressionism: the naturalist impulse by Gabriel P. Weisberg

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Sarkis Pitzak ( 14th century )

Sarkis Pitzak was another artist from the Cilicia school of miniature painting, but in his time, in the fourteenth century, it was already showing signs of decline. Fifteen signed works of his are known. 


Among them is the Gospel illuminated by eight different illuminators, including the famous Toros Roslin, the whole under the control of Sarkis Pitzak. Pitzak painted a great number of miniatures himself, but his style is stiffer but his style is stiffer, and compared with Toros Roslin less universal, less open to nature and the world of people around him.


Source
Armenia: landscape and architecture by Karoly Gink, Karoly Gombos

Toros Roslin ( 13th century )

However, the central place in the fine arts of medieval Armenia (twelfth to thirteenth centuries and later) belongs to book illustrations. Their major features were clarity of composition, expressiveness and maturity in the selection of expressiveness and maturity in the selection of colours, and decorative sense reflected in the abundance and beauty of their ornaments.Toros Roslin and the artists of his school in Cilicia (in the second half of the thirteenth century) developed the art of the Armenian miniature to perfection. Along with brilliant decoration, lavish use of gold and wealth of colours Toros introduced true human beings with all their worldly passions into the realm of the miniature.Toros Roslin the Elder, a contemporary of Giotto and Dante, can be rightfully ranked among the great masters of the Early Renaissance.


 The new tendencies which found their reflection in the art of Toros Roslin were developed by his contemporaries, artists working in various cultural and religious centres of Cilicia, and producing miniatures distinguished from the work of the Hromkla school by a marked interest in spatial arrangement.his interest manifested itself in the prominence given to a complex architectural background against which the buildings were presented from an angle emphasizing recession into depth.Manuscripts of this group do not lend themselves to accurate attribution and are difficult to place, for only a few of them have the usual colophons.


 The immortal Toros Roslin worked at Hromkla and at Sis, mostly between 1 260 and 1270. Toros Roslin had a vigorous artistic temperament, gifted with lively imagination, of excellent taste in the harmony of colours, and a refined sense of design.


Sources
Drampyan, 1969
Armenian Miniatures of the 13th and 14th centuries
Armenia Cradle of Civilization by David Marshall Lang

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Rafayel Manas (1710-1780)

Rafayel Manas (1710? -27 January 1780): The famous palace painter and muganni ( Who is singing on church choir ).According to Jozef Manas ( Who is great-grandchildren of Raphael Manas ) The family lineage traced back to Kayseri, where it originated in the mid-sixteenth century.

Portrait of Mustafa III,  Tempera and Egg on Paper,  1757 or 1789,   27,1 x 17,5 cm,  Istanbul Topkapi Palace

ln Tableau general de l'Empire Ottoman  ( General picture of the Ottoman Empire) , Mouradja d'Ohsson notes that Rafael Manas (1710-1780) served as the court's chief artist during the reign of Abdulhamid l (1774-1789).

Minas Avetisyan (1928—1975)

Minas Avetisyan, was one of the most talented of Armenian painters,he was born in 1928, in a small Armenian village called Djadjur.During his student years, and after graduating from the Leningrad Academy of Fine Arts, Avetisyan travelled widely around Armenia seeking out historical monuments. He also studied Armenian miniatures.


 Women of Armenia (1960). Oil on canvas, 26 x 33". Private collection, New York. Figure study by Minas Avetisyan, an Armenian painter working in Leningrad, showing influence of German expressionism and resembling the works of Hans Hoffman.



Between 1960 and 1975 Avetisyan has painted nearly 500 canvases, almost as many drawings, murals, and 20 large projects for more than a dozen theatrical performances. His art took place in the history of world art.

Sources
Armenia By Vrej Nersessian, 1993
Unofficial Art in the Soviet Union by Paul Sjeklocha, Igor Mead

Dmitriy Nalbandyan (1906-1993)

Dmitriy Nalbandian was born 2 (15) in September 1906 in Tiflis (now Tbilisi).Dmitriy Nalbandyan graduated from the Georgian Academy of Arts. He worked at the Odessa film studios, as a motion picture cartoonist at the Mosfilm studios, and a cartoonist in the Krokodil. In 1931 he moved to Moscow.


Dmitriy Nalbandyan  is famous above all as a master of the front of the portrait, but also worked in the genres of landscape and still life. He created portraits of many members of the Soviet political elite including Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev ( Dmitry Nalbandian, has been commissioned privately by the Brezhnev family ), for which in artistic circles, he was called "First Brush of the Politburo.". In 1978 a group portrait of the leaders of the Armenian culture "Vernatun" was awarded the Gold Medal of Arts of the USSR.


 Crimea Conference ( The Yalta Conference ) , Oil colour on Canvas, 1945, Russian State Museum ( Picture is from Blood and splendor: the story of the worst tyrants of humanity By Daniel Myerson )

Monday, April 16, 2012

Naghash Hovnatan (1661-1722)

Hovnatan was born in 1661 to a priestly family in the town of Shorot (now in the province of Nakhijevan). After receiving his elementary education from his father, Hovhannes Vardapet, he studied at the Monastery of St. Thomas in Agulis ( Nakhcivan ) He became an accomplished artist: in addition to being a poet and singer, he was a well-known painter. Indeed, his forename, Naghash, is the Persian word for painter.He married at an early age and had two sons: Hakob, who became a poet and painter like his father, and Harutiun, who also became a decorative painter.The family talent for painting was inherited by Hovnatan's descendants: he was the founder of the famous Hovnatanian ( Hovnatanyan ) dynasty of the painters, which included five generations of painters spread over nearly two centuries.


Interior walls, murals, and the great dome of Echmiadzin, decorated by the Artist Naghash Hovnatan in 1720 and restorated by his Grandson Hovnatan Hovanatanyan ( 1730-1801)  in 1781-1786.


 
Sources


The Heritage of Armenian Literature: From the sixth to the Eighteenth Century
  Writers: Agop Jack Hacikyan,Gabriel Basmajian,Edward S. Franchuk,Nourhan Ouzounian

Historically Dictionary of Armenia
  By : Rouben Paul Adalian

Minas ( 17th century )

Arakel of  Tabriz expresses his admiration for painter Minas, who trained in Aleppo under European Masters.In the 17th-18th centuries Aleppo was a great trade centre and numerous European painters enriched its artistic tradition.As Arakel of Tabriz mentions, returning to Persia, Minas painted in oil, watercolours, coal.Apart from that, he was distinguished for his good portraits when portrait painting was not much developed in the East. 


He was appereciated by Shah Safi, Who had seen his paintings at the residences of notable Armenians.The paintings of the houses of Khodja Safraz and Petros Velijanian, part of the frescos in the palace of Shah Abbas and Shah Safi , as well as several paintings in Amenaprkich monastery are ascribed to Minas.His paintings reveal his particular style, that was based on a combination of Armenian, Persian and European Art.



Sources
Les Arméniens Dans Le Commerce Asiatique Au Début de L'ère Moderne
 By Sushil Chaudhury, Gegham Gewonean, Kéram Kévonian

The Fire, the Star And the Cross: Minority Religions in Medieval And Early Modern Iran
 By Aptin Khanbaghi

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Hovhannes Mrkuz ( 1642-1725 )

New Julfa had several famous painters.Avadick was a wealthy Armenian merchant who had resided in Italy for some years.On his return to Isfahan , he produced a number of paintings in the Armenian Churches of town.


Another painter of high repute Hovhannes Mrkuz, belonged to the clerical class.He has been credited by Khachatur Julayechi with the decorations of All Saviours Cathedral.


From
The fire, the star and the cross
By Aptin Khanbaghi

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Bogdan Saltanov ( 1630s?-1703 )

Bogdan Saltanov also known as Ivan Ivliuev ( Astvatzatour Sultanean ) was born and worked in New Julfa, where he gained such a high fame that he was invited to Russia by the Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich for decorate the Armoury Chmaber in the Kremlin, Moscow.In 1682 Tsar Feodor ordered Bogdan Saltanov to two half-length portraits of Tsar Aleksei.


A portrait of Feodor III of Russia, by Bogdan Saltanov, Tempera and Egg with Oil Colour on Wood, in 1685


Bogdan Saltanov lived in Moscow for more then 30 years , devoting himself to creation of secular and religious paintings, portraits, icons and engravings , he ornamented the palaces, churches, repaired the decor of some ancient and had a lot of apprentices.


Source
Les Arméniens Dans Le Commerce Asiatique Au Début de L'ère Moderne by By Sushil Chaudhury, Gegham Gewonean, Kéram Kévonian
Armenians and Russia, 1626-1796:a documentary record by George A. Bournoutian

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Ariel Agemian ( 1904-1963 )

Ariel ( Haroutioun , Pascal ) Agemian was born in Bursa ( Turkey ).He went to primary school in Venice, after he graduated from the Venezia, Accademia di Belle Arti ( Venice Academy of Fine Arts ) in 1926 with a Gold Medal Award from the Associazione Artistica.Agemian was a Representative of the school of academic realism and a Skillful master of composition.

Notre Dame De Narek ( Holy Mother of Narek ) , Oil Colour on Canvas, Levonian School of Rome

He has painted national themes reflecting the ancient as well as the contemporary history of the Armenian people, frequently inspired by the distinct decorative, allegorical paintings of the Italian Renaissance. Agemian was also a portraitist and a landscapist. He has painted murals with spiritual as well as secular themes.

From
http://www.agemianpaintings.com/TheArtist.html

Friday, April 6, 2012

Aivazovsky ( 1817 - 1900 )

Marine painter, a forerunner of Realist landscape painting in Russia, who achieved an international reputation.He studied at the St. Petersburg Academy under Vorobyov and the French marine painter P. Tanneur, but formed his style by copying Claude Lorrain and J. Vernet at the Hermitage.He travelled through Europe to Rome ( 1839 ) on a state grant , also visitng Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, England and Holland.In 1844 he returned to St. Petersburg, where he was appointed court marine painter and executed a series of wiews of Russian ports commissioned by Tsar Nicholas I.


He visited Asia Minor in 1846 and became professor at St. Petersburg in 1847.Four Seasons, exhibited in Paris in 1857, earned him the Legion of Honour.He paid an extended visit to Constantinople in 1875, receiving several commissions from the Sultan Abdul-Aziz.A Member of the Amsterdam Academy ( 1844 ) and the Florence Academy ( 1875 ), he claimed to have painted over 4000 canvases.There are works in Feodosia, Helsinki, Leningrad, Moscow.



Lit.T.L.Bulgakov : I.K.Aivazovsky and his Works ( 1901, in Russian )

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Martiros Saryan

Martiros Saryan ( 1880-1972 ) studied under Korovin and Serovat the Moscow College of Painting and Sculpture, where he became friendly with Suedikin , Kuznetsov and Petrov-Vodkin - all brilliant colourists.His Still lifes like his portraits and landscapes, have a remarkable zest.Many of them feauture fruit, vegetables or flowers painted in vibrant, sun-drenched colours.A few include Eastern elements., as in Buddhist Still Life.


He participated in exhibitons from 1907 , including those of the Blue Rose ( 1907 ) ,and World of Art ( 1913-1915 ).He was also a artist of the Union of Russian Artists ( 1910-1911 ) and The Four Arts Society ( 1925-1929 ).He lived and worked in Yerevan Until he died in 1972.



Source
: Still Life by Victoria Charles

Yuhanna al-Armani

Well-known are Icon painters of 18th Century Coptic Egypt was Ibrahim al-Nasikh and Yuhanna al-Armani ( Armenian ).42 of their icons are included in the Collection of Coptic Museum in Cairo.Ibrahim al-Nasikh and Yuhanna al-Armani Painted and decorated many Churhes between 1742-1780 ( Yuhanna al-Armani worked till to 1783 )


The Majority of Yuhanna s surviving and identified works are housed in Coptic Churches and Monasteries.Al-Muallaqa Church, Abu Sirja Church, al-Sitt Barbara, Qasriyat al-Rihan Church, Mar Mina Monastery, Church of the Virgin at Harat Zuwayla, Chruch of Abu Sayfayn, Church of the Virgin ( al-Damshiriyi) , Dayr al-Banat Church of Abu Shinuda are decorated by Yuhanna al-Armani or have a icons which are painted by him.




Sources

Coptology-- past, present, and future
:
studies in honour of Rodolphe Kasser by Rodolphe Kasser, Søren Giversen, Martin Krause

An Armenian Artist in Ottoman Egypt: Yuhanna al-Armani and His Coptic IconsBy Magdi Guirguis, Majdi Jirjis, Nabil Mankabadi

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Teodor Axentowicz

Teodor Axentowicz was a Polish painter of Armenian descent * , illustrator and graphic artist , professor and rector of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow.

Poster design for the third Stzuka exhibition , Krakow, 1899, Litograph ( Sepia ) , Krakow National Museum


Educated in Munich and Paris where he stayed for a dozen or so years, after his Education worked as an illustrator for magazines and doing copies of paintings by old masters, such as Botticelli and Titian. In the years 1890-1899 made ​​several trips to London and Rome, where he painted portraits of women and Polish aristocracy.According to Jan Cavanaugh Around 1890s Teodor Axentowicz was one of the twelve key of Polish Modernist were in Paris.[1]

In 1910 became rector of the Academy of Fine Arts. Since 1928 an honorary member of the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

He exhibited his works for Poland Pavion include in Berlin (1896, 1913)
, St. Louis (1904), Munich (1905, 1935), London (1906), Vienna (1908), Rome (1911), Venice (1914, 1926), Paris (1921), Chicago (1927), Prague (1927).[2]




Notes:

* Ararat, Volume 31 (Armenian General Benevolent Union of America, 1990 )
[1] Out looking in: early modern Polish art, 1890-1918 by: Jan Cavanaugh
[2] Early Polish modern art: unity in multiplicity by : Marek Bartelik

Tadeusz Baracz


Tadeusz
Barącz ( 1849 - 1905 ) was a Polish of Armenian Descent, sculptor and medalist, author of numerous portraits, sculptures and monuments.


The Baracz family of Armenian Descent has been linked with Poland since 17th century.Other Baracz family membersHis younger brother was Roman (1856-1919) Associate Professor Surgery at the University of Lvov. Another brother, Ladislaus was director of the Grand Theatre, Stanislav was an accomplished poet and engineer Erasmus miner and collector.(*)


Tadeusz Baracz, studied art under Władysław Łuszczkiewicz held in Krakow, and later studied in Munich and Florence. He made a lot of decoration of public buildings in Lviv, and many tombs and monuments, including the famous statue of King Jan III Sobieski, the hetman Gelding. He was the author of, among others statues of Copernicus, Mickiewicz, Czackiego, Ossolinski Sniadecki and Dlugosz on building III School Street. Batory Foundation in Lviv, busts Shevchenko, Siemiradzkiego, Lenartowicz Matejko, Malczewski, Kosciuszko monument in Chicago, Mickiewicz in Karlovy Vary and Truskavets. He was also the author of two outstanding monuments of Lviv: May 3rd Constitution of the monument and a monument to Poles who died for freedom in the uprisings 1794-1831-1863.


Reference

(*) The Polish biographical dictionary by Stanley S. Sokol,Sharon F. Mrotek Kissane,Alfred L. Abramowicz