Yervand Kochar
Ervand Kochar (Armenian: Երվանդ Քոչար; Kocharyan) (June 15, 1899, Tiflis, Russian Empire - January 22, 1979, Yerevan, Soviet Armenia) is a prominent sculptor and artist of the twentieth century, founder of Painting in Space.
Biography
Yervand Kochar was born in Tbilisi on June 15, 1899. He graduated in 1918 from Nersisian School, and from 1915-1918 he had also studied in the Arts School of the Caucasus Association for Promotion of Fine Arts (known as O. Schmerling School) in Tbilisi. In 1918-1919 he studied at the State Free Art Studio of Moscow. He returned to Tbilisi, where he was granted a certificate of professor of Fine Arts and Technical Studies by the People's Commissariat of the Georgian SSR. In 1921 - 1922 Kochar was elected on the exhibition commission of the Union of Armenian Artists and becomes a member of the "HAYARTUN" (House of Armenian Art). In April 1922 he heads from Batum for abroad - to Constantinople, then to Venice, Rome, Florence and Paris. Kochar's works were first exhibited in Tbilisi in 1921 and the following year in the Allied-controlled Constantinople (Istanbul) and in Venice. By 1923 Kochar settled down in Paris, where his art was well received and earned enduring recognition. In 1928 the media prints sympathizing echoes on the occasion of cases of vandalism towards two sculpture-paintings by Kochar in the exhibition at the Salon des Indépendants. Those works were the first heralds of "Painting in Space". In February Dr. Alendi delivers a lecture in Sorbonne on Kochar's "new painting". Kochar's Painting in Space one-man show opens in "Van Leer" Gallery. The 15 works presented were new plastic and artistic means of expression which involved time as an additional fourth dimension. The author of the catalogue was French-Polish art critic Waldemar George (1893-1970). In 1929 the international exhibition, "Panorama de L`art contemporain"("Panorama of Contemporary Art") organized in the halls of the "BONAPART" Publishers, Kochar presents works of "Painting in Space". Among the participants of the exhibition were Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Robert Delaunay, Henri Matisse, Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Liursa, Joan Miró, Survage, Utrillo, Vlamink, and others. Kochar meets Leonse Rosenberg, the well-known patron and connoisseur of modern art, who becomes a fan of Kochar's art. In 1936 at the threshold of glory and the peak of his artistic fame, to the surprise of many, Kochar repatriates to Soviet Armenia, without the least doubt that he is leaving Paris for good. Between 1941 and 1943 Kochar was imprisoned on politically motivated charges, but was eventually freed due to the interference of his friends from Nersissian School, Karo Halabian and Anastas Mikoyan. Yervand Kochar continued working in Yerevan, earning recognition as an Honored Artist of Armenia in 1956, People's Artist of Armenia in 1965, State Prize recipient in 1967, Soviet Order of Red Banner in 1971 and People's Artist of the Soviet Union in 1976. His most recognized works include the statues of David of Sassoun (1959) which has become the symbol of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia; of Vardan Mamikonian (1975); of Komitas (1969) in Echmiadzin. One of his masterpieces in painting is "Disasters of War". In 1963 National Museum of Modern Art Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris acquires one of Kochar's works of "Painting in the Space" (1934). Kochar died in 1979 in Yerevan. A museum dedicated to his art opened near Yerevan's Cascade in 1984. In 1999 UNESCO marked Kochar's centennial as one of "outstanding dates" in world art. In 2010 Armenia's Union of Artists opened an exhibit dedicated to Yervand Kochar's artistic legacy marking 110 years since the artist's birth.
He was married to philologist Manik Mkrtchyan (1913–1984), with whom he had two sons, Haykaz Kochar (1946) and Ruben Kochar (1953).
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