Paul Guiragossian

Paul Guiragossian Պոլ Կիրակոսյան Paul Guiragossian, (circa 1990), Photographed by his son Jean-Paul)
Born	1925 Jerusalem
Died	20 November 1993 Beirut, Lebanon
Nationality	Armenian, Lebanese
Known for	Painter

Paul Guiragossian (Armenian: Պոլ Կիրակոսյան; 1925 – 20 November 1993) was an Armenian Lebanese painter.

Biography

Born to Armenian parents, survivors of the Armenian Genocide, Paul Guiragossian experienced the consequences of exile from a very tender age. Raised in boarding schools, Paul grew up away from his mother who had to work to make sure her two sons got an education. As a child Paul remembers looking out from the window watching children flying their kites and they would always ask him to draw theirs because he did the most beautiful and colorful designs. It’s then that he realized he had a special talent and his love for art became an indispensable need. In the early 1940s Paul and his family moved to Jaffa where he attended Studio Yarkon to start improving his passion of painting. In late 1947, the family moved again and settled in Lebanon.

In the 1950s Paul started teaching art in several Armenian schools and worked as an illustrator. He later started his own business with his brother Antoine painting cinema banners, posters and drawing illustrations for books. Soon after he was discovered for his art and introduced to his contemporaries after which he began exhibiting his works in Beirut and eventually all over the world. In 1956 he won the first prize in a painting competition, which landed him a scholarship by the Italian government to study at the Academia di Belle Arti di Firenze (The Academy of Fine Arts of Florence). While in Florence, Paul had multiple exhibitions starting with a solo show in 1958 at the Galeria D’Arte Moderna “La Permanente”. In 1962, Paul was granted another scholarship, this time by the French Government, to study and paint in Paris at Les Atelier Des Maîtres De L’Ecole De Paris and by the end of that year he had a solo exhibition at the Galerie Mouffe. By the mid 1960s Guiragossian had grown to become one of the most celebrated artists in Lebanon and eventually of the Arab world and even though war broke out in the early 1970s, his attachment to Lebanon grew bigger and his works became more colorful with messages of hope for his people. In 1989 Paul went to Paris to exhibit his works in La Salle Des Pas Perdus in UNESCO and resided in the city with part of his family until 1991. At the end of that 1991 Guiragossian had a solo exhibition at the Institut du Monde Arabe. This exhibition was extended and marked the very first solo show at the IMA for any artist. Paul unexpectedly passed away in 1993 on the 20th of November in Beirut, after completing a magnificent oil painting which he revealed to his family to be his best work yet. The family agreed to entitle the painting "L'Adieu" and it remains unsigned in the Guiragossian Family Collection.

Family

in 1952, Paul married Juliette Hindian, a young painter and a former student of his. Together they had 6 children Silva, Emmanuel, Araxie, Jean-Paul, Ara and Manuella. Their son Ara died soon after birth and Paul painted several paintings as a tribute to him. All the children have studied different forms of Art but Emmanuel, Jean-Paul and Manuella continued their careers as artist painters, making a name of their own names in the art world. The family never stopped taking care of their father's work after he passed away and in 2011 established The Paul Guiragossian Foundation to preserve and promote his legacy.

Quotes

"Art is the Oxygen of the mind"
"When I was a child, people around me were talking in different languages. I was wondering then: Who am I? And in what language should I express myself: In Armenian, Arabic, French? Finally, I understood that my first language is painting; and I should only talk through painting and nothing else."
"I looked around me and painted those expressive images and faces that I encountered in my life and so dearly loved: I painted myself, my children, my wife, my neighbors, my folk and the street on which I lived."
"A True painter paints the interiority of the human being. When you say of a true artist's canvases one is old and the other is new, when you make comparisons between the drawings of this year and the ones from last year I call this blah blah blah. If an artist has an internal talent, he himself can create a technique and a school. In my eyes, there are no old and new paintings, but on that is valid and one that isn't. And, when people ask me: what are you going to do tomorrow? It doesn't make any sense to me. I answer: have you seen what I have done yesterday? If you believe in my yesterday, you will believe in my tomorrow."

References

External links