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Lot Essay
Figures is an early work within Seta Manoukian’s diverse oeuvre, painted in 1967 as she began to develop the figurative language that would become central to her practice. The painting depicts a group of semi-abstracted human forms, anticipating her later scenes of dense cityscapes, streets and domestic interiors populated by anonymous passersby, politicians, friends and family. Across these works, Manoukian explored shifting perceptions of time, space and perspective, often creating a distinctive sense of disorientation and weightlessness. In the present painting, the figures are compressed into a shallow pictorial space, the leftmost leans inward, the central figures remain more upright, while the figure at right is partially cut off by the edge of the canvas and dissolves into the background. A palette of yellow, ochre, green, orange and red is applied in broad, flattened passages, while dark blue and black outlines articulate and fragment the forms. Irregular brushstrokes overlap across the figures, simultaneously separating and connecting them, directing attention towards the group as a collective presence.
Painted in the year Manoukian returned to Beirut from Rome, where she had studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti, Figures emerged at a formative moment in both her artistic development and the cultural life of the city. She became involved with Beirut’s politically engaged, left-wing intellectual and artistic circles, sharing in their sense of uncertainty in response to the political crises affecting Lebanon and the wider Arab world. Within this context, the painting’s crowded composition and fragmented forms can be understood as reflecting a broader atmosphere of instability. The figures’ overlapping bodies and indistinct identities create a palpable sense of collective tension, while their distorted proportions and compressed spatial relationships convey a feeling of psychological unease. At the same time, Figures reveals Manoukian’s early interest in the human figure as a vehicle for expressing states of uncertainty rather than individual identity. The tension between the distinct poses of the figures and their visual interconnection creates a composition in which human presence is both asserted and destabilised. Painted shortly after her return to Beirut, the work offers an early glimpse of the visual language through which Manoukian would increasingly engage with the city and its evolving social and political landscape.
Figures was exhibited at Sharjah Art Museum in Parallel Histories (2023–2024). The work originates from the prestigious Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, one of the Gulf’s leading institutions dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Arab art. Its presentation alongside four works by pioneering female artists in Christie’s anniversary auction reflects the Foundation’s longstanding commitment to a gender-balanced and historically inclusive approach to collecting and championing Arab artistic practice.
Born in Beirut in 1945, Seta Manoukian is a Lebanese painter of Armenian descent who emerged as a prominent figure in Beirut’s flourishing art scene in the late 1960s. She began drawing at an early age and studied privately with the Lebanese painter Paul Guiragossian between 1960 and 1962, who recognised her talent. In 1963, aged seventeen, she won first prize in an art competition organised by the Italian Embassy, which took her to Perugia for three months of study. She subsequently studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, graduating in 1966. Returning to Beirut in 1967, she began teaching while continuing to paint, and held her first solo exhibition that same year at Galerie Alecco Saab. The outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975 coincided with Manoukian’s teaching at the Lebanese University and marked a profound period of upheaval in the country. In 1985, she relocated to Los Angeles, where she continued her artistic practice. Her later work became increasingly informed by her engagement with Buddhism; in 2000 she joined a Theravada Buddhist temple in Los Angeles and in 2005 was ordained as a Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka.
Her work is held in prominent public and private collections, including Museum of the Mekhitarist Convent, Vienna; San Lazzaro degli Armeni, Venice; the National Museum, Yerevan and Sursock Museum, Beirut.
Painted in the year Manoukian returned to Beirut from Rome, where she had studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti, Figures emerged at a formative moment in both her artistic development and the cultural life of the city. She became involved with Beirut’s politically engaged, left-wing intellectual and artistic circles, sharing in their sense of uncertainty in response to the political crises affecting Lebanon and the wider Arab world. Within this context, the painting’s crowded composition and fragmented forms can be understood as reflecting a broader atmosphere of instability. The figures’ overlapping bodies and indistinct identities create a palpable sense of collective tension, while their distorted proportions and compressed spatial relationships convey a feeling of psychological unease. At the same time, Figures reveals Manoukian’s early interest in the human figure as a vehicle for expressing states of uncertainty rather than individual identity. The tension between the distinct poses of the figures and their visual interconnection creates a composition in which human presence is both asserted and destabilised. Painted shortly after her return to Beirut, the work offers an early glimpse of the visual language through which Manoukian would increasingly engage with the city and its evolving social and political landscape.
Figures was exhibited at Sharjah Art Museum in Parallel Histories (2023–2024). The work originates from the prestigious Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, one of the Gulf’s leading institutions dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Arab art. Its presentation alongside four works by pioneering female artists in Christie’s anniversary auction reflects the Foundation’s longstanding commitment to a gender-balanced and historically inclusive approach to collecting and championing Arab artistic practice.
Born in Beirut in 1945, Seta Manoukian is a Lebanese painter of Armenian descent who emerged as a prominent figure in Beirut’s flourishing art scene in the late 1960s. She began drawing at an early age and studied privately with the Lebanese painter Paul Guiragossian between 1960 and 1962, who recognised her talent. In 1963, aged seventeen, she won first prize in an art competition organised by the Italian Embassy, which took her to Perugia for three months of study. She subsequently studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, graduating in 1966. Returning to Beirut in 1967, she began teaching while continuing to paint, and held her first solo exhibition that same year at Galerie Alecco Saab. The outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975 coincided with Manoukian’s teaching at the Lebanese University and marked a profound period of upheaval in the country. In 1985, she relocated to Los Angeles, where she continued her artistic practice. Her later work became increasingly informed by her engagement with Buddhism; in 2000 she joined a Theravada Buddhist temple in Los Angeles and in 2005 was ordained as a Buddhist nun in Sri Lanka.
Her work is held in prominent public and private collections, including Museum of the Mekhitarist Convent, Vienna; San Lazzaro degli Armeni, Venice; the National Museum, Yerevan and Sursock Museum, Beirut.