Avetisyan, Minas

Celebrated Armenian painter.

Born July 20, 1928, in a village of Dzhadzhur, Ahuryansky County, in a family of a peasant. Studied in Terlemezyan Yerevan College in 1947-1952, in Yerevan Art and Drama Institute in 1952-1954, and in Repin Leningrad Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture Institute in 1952-1954, where one of his leading instructors was B.V. Ioganson. Lived in Yerevan since 1960.

Avetisyan gave a new life to the principles of fauvism with his mature works - picturesque, contrasty, painted with expressive strikes. Transcaucasian medieval art tradition also influenced his painting significantly. Avetisyan's works combine special color saturation with epic dramatization of the image row: landscapes, self-portraits, and genre rural motives were perceived as a breakthrough for the freedom of aesthetic self-expression at official exhibitions (Baking a Lavash, 1972, Landscape with Hachkary, 1974, both canvasses are located in Yerevan Modern Art Museum). Even though gravitating, on the whole, rather to the French moderne and early 20th-century avant-garde, Avetisyan thereby came close to his contemporary Russian "stern style".

He was also a successful scenographer (scenography for Khachaturyan's ballet Gayane in Spendiarov Opera and Ballet Theater, 1974, and other projects) and muralist (plant interior murals in Leninakan-Gyumri, 1970-1974).

Minas Avetisyan tragically died in a car accident in Yerevan on February 24, 1975.