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Lot Essay
Born in Jerusalem in 1926 to survivors of the Armenian Genocide, Paul Guiragossian was passionate about painting from a very young age seeing as it was his refuge from the cruelty of the world around him. Growing up, Paul was sent to boarding school away from his mother who had to work to provide an education for her sons. Being separated from his mother at an early age, Guiragossian constantly explored the theme of motherhood. He depicted his personal struggles of being estranged from her and longing for that embracing maternal love. His faceless figures delineated by thick brushstrokes using vibrant colours, evoke the human condition. Being depicted statically or in motion, his compositions seek a balance between an Expressionist’s touch and emotions through a vivid rhythm of tender, rounded lines. His configurations induce a serene aura through an expansive range of authentic human reality.
In the early 1940s, he and his family migrated to Jaffa where he enrolled in Studio Yarkon to develop his knowledge on painting. In 1947, they resettled in Lebanon, where Paul started to produce portraits of the inhabitants of his neighborhood, defined by their flowing and lively strokes that capture the carnal and emotive state of his subjects.
However, the true turning point in his career as an artist was in 1956 when he was awarded the first prize in a painting competition which was a scholarship to study painting at the Academia di Belle Arti di Firenze. He was later granted another scholarship by the government of France to study abroad at Les Ateliers des Maîtres de l'École de Paris. In the 1960s and 1970s, Guiragossian’s work exponentially focused on the troubles caused by the Armenian Genocide and his family’s forced relocation to Beirut, creating a painterly language for his audiences to better understand this personal journey.
In Les Roses, dated 1985, Guiragossian’s technical skills ranging from abstraction to figuration offers an intimate and intricate view into his struggles while simultaneously carrying a sense of optimism and hope. Despite his fascination for the human form, abstraction was omnipresent in his paintings. He uses these impulsive, dynamic and powerful brushstrokes to depict a simplified human form, resonating Byzantine icons, and to create a subtle musical rhythm. Using bold and lively colours, Guiragossian would apply the paint in thick blocks onto the canvas and embrace the negative space, generating complexity and movement from these untouched areas of paint.
Yellow was supposedly Guiragossian’s favorite colour, beautifully prominent in the present work. The colour’s symbolism stands for happiness, optimism and enlightenment; it evokes the new day that comes along with the new season, the warmth and the comfort of one’s home as the summer light fades. On the other hand, because of yellow’s toxic history, it can also allude to betrayal, anguish and despair, as though referring to the chaos the artist witnessed during his years growing up in the tormented Levant.
In the early 1940s, he and his family migrated to Jaffa where he enrolled in Studio Yarkon to develop his knowledge on painting. In 1947, they resettled in Lebanon, where Paul started to produce portraits of the inhabitants of his neighborhood, defined by their flowing and lively strokes that capture the carnal and emotive state of his subjects.
However, the true turning point in his career as an artist was in 1956 when he was awarded the first prize in a painting competition which was a scholarship to study painting at the Academia di Belle Arti di Firenze. He was later granted another scholarship by the government of France to study abroad at Les Ateliers des Maîtres de l'École de Paris. In the 1960s and 1970s, Guiragossian’s work exponentially focused on the troubles caused by the Armenian Genocide and his family’s forced relocation to Beirut, creating a painterly language for his audiences to better understand this personal journey.
In Les Roses, dated 1985, Guiragossian’s technical skills ranging from abstraction to figuration offers an intimate and intricate view into his struggles while simultaneously carrying a sense of optimism and hope. Despite his fascination for the human form, abstraction was omnipresent in his paintings. He uses these impulsive, dynamic and powerful brushstrokes to depict a simplified human form, resonating Byzantine icons, and to create a subtle musical rhythm. Using bold and lively colours, Guiragossian would apply the paint in thick blocks onto the canvas and embrace the negative space, generating complexity and movement from these untouched areas of paint.
Yellow was supposedly Guiragossian’s favorite colour, beautifully prominent in the present work. The colour’s symbolism stands for happiness, optimism and enlightenment; it evokes the new day that comes along with the new season, the warmth and the comfort of one’s home as the summer light fades. On the other hand, because of yellow’s toxic history, it can also allude to betrayal, anguish and despair, as though referring to the chaos the artist witnessed during his years growing up in the tormented Levant.