Martiros Sarian

Painter, graphic artist, theatrical designer. Graduated from Nakhichevan Municipal School (1895). Studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1897–1904) and the studio of Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin (from 1902). Member of Blue Rose (1907–10), Wreath-Stephanos (1907–08), Moscow Fellowship of Artists (from 1905), Union of Russian Artists (from 1910) and Four Arts (from 1925). Regularly travelled to the Caucasus (1901–03), visited Constantinople (1910), Egypt and Turkey (1911) and Persia (1913). Went to Etchmiadzin to help refugees fleeing from the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire (1915). Settled in Tiflis (1916), lived in Yerevan (from 1921). Founded and headed the State Museum of Archaeology, Ethnography and Fine Art (1921). Helped to establish the Yerevan School of Art and the Union of Armenian Artists, member of the Committee for the Protection of Historical Monuments. Visited Venice, Florence and Rome (1924). Lived and worked in Paris (1926–28), but most of his paintings were destroyed in a fire on the ship taking him back to the Soviet Union. Designed the sets and costumes for a performance of Zuleika at Nikita Balieff’s Théâtre de la Chauve-Souris in Paris (1926), collaborated with the Odessa Theatre of Opera and Ballet, Alexander Spendiarov Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Yerevan, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre of Music and the Konstantin Stanislavsky Theatre of Opera in Moscow (late 1920s–1930s). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1898). Contributed to the exhibitions of Crimson Rose (1904), Moscow Fellowship of Artists (1905, 1910, 1911), Blue Rose (1907), Wreath-Stephanos (1907–08), Golden Fleece Salons (1908–10), Union of Russian Artists (1909–12), World of Art (1911–16), Manet and the Post-Impressionists in London (1912), 1915 (1915), Die erste russische Kunstausstellung in Berlin (1922), Masters of the Blue Rose in Moscow (1925), Four Arts in Moscow (1926, 1929) and Leningrad ( 1928), Russian Members of the World of Art Group in Paris (1927), Artists of the RSFSR Over Fifteen Years in Leningrad (1932) and Moscow (1933), exhibitions of Russian and Soviet art in New York (1924), United States and Canada (1924–25), United States (1929), Vienna (1930), Königsberg (1932), Copenhagen (1933), Montreal (1935) and London (1957), World Fairs in Paris (1937, grand prix) and Brussels (1958) and the international exhibitions in Rome (1911), Malmo (1914), Venice (1924, 1934, 1956), Dresden (1926) and India (1952). One-man shows in Paris (1928, 1980, 1984), Moscow (1936, 1956, 1964, 1965, 1980, 1985, 1995, 2011), Leningrad (1936, 1956, 1964, 1972), Yerevan (1955, 1956, 1961, 1965, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1983), Tbilisi (1955), Bucharest (1965), Prague (1966), Berlin (1966), Budapest (1967), Kharkiv (1968), Bologna (1975), Bari (1976), Havana (1978) and Riga (1978). People’s Artist of Armenia (1926), full member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1947), People’s Artist of the USSR (1960).