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Lot Essay
An exquisite and rare example from Paul Guiragossian’s late oeuvre, Automne, painted in the late 1980s, is a masterpiece that reveals the artist’s unparalleled command of colour and his mature synthesis of figuration and abstraction. Widely regarded as one of the most important Arab modernists, Guiragossian developed a visual language that distilled the human figure into vertical bands of pigment, at once evoking communities in solidarity and the universal condition of exile. Over the course of his six-decade career, he consistently redefined the limits of modern Arab painting, transitioning from early figurative portraits to luminous abstraction that was profoundly rooted in the human spirit. Automne is a testament to the late period, during which his canvases attained both formal refinement and profound emotional resonance.
Dominated by tall interwoven silhouettes rendered in thick impasto, the composition is reminiscent of the autumnal leaves through the radiant tonalities of yellow. Through robust, sculptural brushstrokes, the figures appear to emerge from the surface, their contours dissolved into the surrounding field of colour. The yellow palette, long associated with the artist, embodies both warmth and optimism yet carries a subtle undertone of fragility and sorrow, mirroring the tensions between hope and hardship that marked Guiragossian’s life and the history of his region. Each patch of pigment sits distinctly beside the next, never overlapping, producing a visual rhythm that suggests a community bound together while retaining its individual parts. With its harmony of tone, texture, and movement, Automne captures a poetic balance between resilience and melancholy.
Born in Jerusalem in 1926 to Armenian parents who survived the genocide, Guiragossian experienced exile from an early age, an experience that would shape his lifelong exploration of belonging and collective memory. After formative years in Jaffa and Beirut, he studied in Florence and Paris, discarding academic conventions to develop his signature abstracted figuration. His works today are held in major public and private collections worldwide, including Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, and Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah.
Dominated by tall interwoven silhouettes rendered in thick impasto, the composition is reminiscent of the autumnal leaves through the radiant tonalities of yellow. Through robust, sculptural brushstrokes, the figures appear to emerge from the surface, their contours dissolved into the surrounding field of colour. The yellow palette, long associated with the artist, embodies both warmth and optimism yet carries a subtle undertone of fragility and sorrow, mirroring the tensions between hope and hardship that marked Guiragossian’s life and the history of his region. Each patch of pigment sits distinctly beside the next, never overlapping, producing a visual rhythm that suggests a community bound together while retaining its individual parts. With its harmony of tone, texture, and movement, Automne captures a poetic balance between resilience and melancholy.
Born in Jerusalem in 1926 to Armenian parents who survived the genocide, Guiragossian experienced exile from an early age, an experience that would shape his lifelong exploration of belonging and collective memory. After formative years in Jaffa and Beirut, he studied in Florence and Paris, discarding academic conventions to develop his signature abstracted figuration. His works today are held in major public and private collections worldwide, including Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, and Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah.