 | Martiros Sergeevich SARYAN 1880 — 1972Мартірос Сергійович САР`ЯН • Мартирос Сергеевич САРЬЯНMartiros Saryan was born in Nakhichevan-on-Don in 1880. Armenian painter. In 1895 he completed the Nakhichevan school and from 1897 to 1904 studied at the Moscow School of Arts, including in the workshops of Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin. He was heavily influenced by the work of Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse. He first visited Armenia, then part of the Russian Empire, in 1901, visiting Lori, Shirak, Echmiadzin, Haghpat, Sanahin, Yerevan and Sevan. From 1910 to 1913 he traveled extensively in Turkey, Egypt and Iran. In 1915 he went to Echmiadzin to help refugees who had fled from the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. In 1916 he traveled to Tiflis (now Tbilisi) where he married Lusik Agayan. It was there that he helped organize the Society of Armenian Artists. After the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 he moved with his family to live in Russia. In 1921 they moved back to Armenia. While most of his work reflected the Armenian landscape, he also designed the coat of arms for Armenian SSR and the curtain for the first Armenian state theatre. From 1926 - 1928 he lived and worked in Paris, but most works from this period were destroyed in a fire on board the boat on which he returned to the Soviet Union. In the difficult years of the 1930s, he mainly devoted himself again to landscape painting, as well as portraits. He also was chosen as a deputy to the USSR Supreme Soviet and was awarded the Order of Lenin three times and other awards and medals. Saryan died in Yerevan in 1972. His former home in Yerevan is now a museum dedicated to his work with hundreds of items on display. |
