🔥 Important RARE Egyptian Armenian Modernist Oil Painting, Puzant Godjamanian

Description: This is a culturally significant and Important RARE Egyptian Armenian Modernist Cubist Oil Painting on canvas, by pioneering Armenian-Egyptian modernist painter, Puzant Godjamanian (1909 - 1993.) This artwork depicts the expressionist portrait of a hooded and robed Armenian woman holding a lamb, set against an abstracted orange background. The figure looks upward with her mouth open, speaking to God above. Signed and dated: "G. Puzant '86" in the lower right corner. Additionally, an old label on the verso titles this artwork as: "Vow of Spitak" and also has another label with Armenian script, which I cannot read. Spitak is a community in the Lori province of Armenia, roughly 60 miles from the capital, Yerevan. Approximately 15 1/2 x 30 1/2 inches (including frame.) Actual artwork is approximately 15 x 30 inches. Very good condition for age, with some light edge wear to the original period frame. Priced to Sell. Original paintings by this artist seldomly come up for sale, and this is one of the best that has ever been offered. If you like what you see, I encourage you to make an Offer. Please check out my other listings for more wonderful and unique artworks! About the Artist: Puzant Godjamanian Puzant Godjamanian (- 1993) was active/lived in Egypt, Armenia. Puzant Godjamanian is known for Painting.Puzant Godjamanian is an Egyptian (Armenian) born artist who was named "King of Colours" by King Farouk of Egypt. He passed away in 1993. PUZANT GODJAMANIAN (1909-1993) Puzant was born in Trabzon, Turkey, on December 31st, 1909. Trabzon is a town on the Black Sea coast of north-eastern Turkey. It is the capital of Trabzon Province. At the time Ottoman Turkey entered the 1st World War in 1914 it was inhabited by 45,000 people, of which around one third were Armenians (around 15,000). The rest were Greeks and Turks, and most of the population was occupied in agriculture, crafts and commerce.When the great tragedy of the Armenian people started in the spring of 1915, Puzant was five and a half years old. He survived thanks to a Kurdish family who took him as a servant. As for his family, it consisted of the father Mgrditch who was a teacher in the local Armenian school, the mother Azniv and five children; two girls and three boys. The older girl was named Annig and the younger one was Adrine, while the youngest child was Puzant himself. He also had an uncle, who was an art teacher in the Armenian school there, who encouraged young Puzant to draw.Although Puzant is considered a victim of the Genocide, since both his father, uncle and two brothers were murdered and the rest of the family were scattered, yet he was lucky for not being killed or starved to death. As for his two sisters, they survived by walking towards the direction of the Russian border following the path of a retreating Russian army. Since, during the military operations, a Russian army arriving from both land and sea had captured the area of Trabzon in 1916, entering the city on the 5th of April and staying until the end of the military operations against the Turks in October 1917. When the Russian army retreated eastwards to its original borders, along with it numerous Armenians and Greeks also departed, and thus they escaped an imminent death. But the destiny of Puzant’s mother Azniv was different as she boarded a Russian ship heading towards Sevastopol in Crimea. This is how the whole family became scattered.After the 1st World War, in late 1917, a philanthropic movement began in allover Turkey, led by some patriotic Armenians, who were soon joined by compassionate Americans, to gather thousands of orphans who were left behind. In Trabzon, this movement was led by a bishop named Karekin khatchadourian, who gathered hundreds of orphans in an orphanage, established in a local Armenian school. In 1922 when the movement of Mustafa Kemal reached its peak, it was decided to move all Armenian orphans from Turkey in order to save them. Thus, around 25,000 orphans were transported by sea to Greece, under the protection and expenses of the American Committee for Relief in the Near East, which was established in 1915 and operated till 1931. It also supported orphans in Armenia (numbered around 20,000), Syria and elsewhere. The total number of orphans supported by this glorious committee was around 130,000 (Arev, issue of 15th March, 1929, page 2).I mentioned all available data about Trabzon and Puzant’s early life there because as the reader will notice, these facts later on played a crucial role in creating several number of his works, for both consciously and subconsciously he was sometimes inspired by remote memories of his childhood years.Trabzon is a beautiful town bordered by the sea in the north and by a mountain range in the south. Being a coastal town it has a rainy and humid climate, which is why the mountains are covered by forests inhabited by wild animals, such as flocks of deer, wild boars, goats, rabbits and bears.We can surmise that Puzant’s father took his family from time to time to the outskirt of town, to enjoy the nature. Thus the love of nature and animals, were strong early emotions “stored” forever in the brain of our future artist Puzant. This storage later on became a big source for subject-matter in his art. Of course besides early memories of his family, his people and their tragedies, and also new themes which were “discovered” by him on Egyptian soil, like the humble life of the fellahs and the calm countryside of Shubra quarter which was in the 1930s and 1940s an outskirt of Cairo.In 1922, Puzant was transported to a temporary camp for orphans in Syra, a Greek island. Fortunately after some time his talent was discovered by camp supervisors and eventually he was sent to an orphanage in Athens where art lessons were available. There he studied the preliminaries of art under a qualified Greek artist and teacher called Lucas Yeralis (1870-1958), who also introduced him to Byzantine art, which later became one of the most important sources of his expressionist style. Unfortunately this fact went unnoticed by all the critics who wrote about his art.In 1927, the Greek orphanage sent our artist Puzant Godjamanian to Egypt, when he was seventeen and a half years old. He lived in Egypt until 1969 when he moved to Lebanon. Thus, he spent around half of his life in Egypt, It was the most important part of his life, when his artistic personality was being shaped. During the forties of last century, he created a distinctive expressionist style of his own, which was developed till the end of his life.Puzant became well known from 1940s till 1970 by the intelligentsia of Cairo and Alexandria, due to his participation in many group exhibitions, as well as his frequently held solo exhibitions.Since his arrival to Cairo he worked in a lithographic printing house in Shoubra, established in 1926 by Haroutyoun Amirayan (1884-1935). At the same time he attended evening courses at Leonardo da Vinci art school (1927-1930). He was lucky (for the third time!) that his benevolent employer noticed his obvious artistic talent and he sent him to Rome to learn art academically (1930-1934). After four years, the artist returned to Egypt full of enthusiasm and having fulfilled his artistic studies.In Cairo, he resumed his work in the Amirayan printing house, at the same time developing his art. In this early period of his artistic career, he gradually integrated into the life of the Egyptian people, sometimes going out of his workshop to draw sketches here and there. Soon he became fond of the Egyptian countryside and respected the Egyptian fellahs in particular. Thus, themes derived from the Egyptian rural life, became his persistent subject-matters later on.Starting from 1935 he began to participate in different group exhibitions. His first solo exhibition was held at the Societe Orientale de Publicite hall in 1944. During the years, several art critics wrote about his art, among them Etienne Meriel, Ahmad Rassem, Arsene Yergath, Dikran Antranigian, Robert Blum and Aime Azar. Besides, Onnig Avedisian dedicated five pages to introduce Puzant’s art in his huge book about Armenian plastic arts in the world, which was published in Cairo in 1959 (written in French, the language used for art criticism in Egypt until the sixties of the 20th century).Unfortunately, because of different historical, political and social reasons, a mass emigration of foreign communities from Egypt started in the fifties. The number of foreigners was more than a quarter of a million individuals; as for the Armenians they were around thirty-five thousand. As part of this “exodus”, a number of Armenian artists left Egypt and went to different parts of the world (Armenia, Australia, Canada, Brazil, the United States of America and France). This “exodus” went on until the seventies. Puzant Godjamanian was one of the artists that moved from Egypt to Lebanon with his family in 1969, finally settling in the United States in 1972, where he lived and created art works till around the end of his life. He died in Los Angeles on the 16th of December 1993).Hence, we can divide Puzant’s life into three periods: the first period is from his birth until his arrival to Egypt in 1927, the second is the period of his productive life in Egypt from 1927 to 1969, then the third period that began when he left Egypt in 1969 until his death in 1993.Puzant created a strong expressionist style that he developed gradually, following his academic period (his 1st artistic period). He reached his first degree of maturity during 1950s. One of the most important sources of his style was Byzantine iconography, the other being modern German expressionism, and finally he was inspired by the monumentality of ancient Egyptian art in his third period (the last one).At the beginning, the painter was dealing with traditional art subjects such as the landscape, the portrait and the still life, and then human themes and motifs started to be projected in his art, whereas “human relations” became the most important subject-matter he treated in his paintings. In spite of his previous frustrations, his humanism and love of life were reflected in his art. He has also depicted herbivorous animals especially gazelles, which he said he liked to paint as they represented kindness and innocence apart from their beautiful streamlined forms. He also painted cows, bulls and horses as symbolic manifestations of the forces of nature. They all had symbolic meanings with a background of psychological reflections, perhaps the painter not being consciously aware of them at the time.We can say that Puzant Godjamanian’s figurative art encompasses deep human contents, which are reflected through an easily recognizable and strong expressionist style. In his first and second periods, this style is specified by the harmony of contrast between hot colors (red, oranges, and yellows) and cold colors (blues, greens, with a little or without violets), in addition to his streamlined lines which express self-confidence and strong emotion. Also, there is the contrast of shapes, which approach each other in the form of balanced elements. As to the texture of his paintings, it is rather harsh and prominent (impasto) as it completely reflects the force and depth of his aesthetical emotions.After his move to the United States, namely in his final artistic period, Puzant was not influenced as many other artists by dominating artistic trends there, or transient ephemeral “fashions” that would soon disappear and be eliminated from the history of art. He kept on developing his artistic style achieved in Egypt until the end of his life.In the context of his artistic evolution, a series of new colors started to appear in his paintings in this third and last period, such as browns and grays, as essential ingredients of his color harmonies. Moreover, for the first time strictly straight lines appeared in his art and this helped to move towards the monumentality of ancient Egyptian art. We shall notice that the expression of nostalgia was one of the most important contents of his art in this period.Puzant Godjamanian throughout his life participated in many group exhibitions, the most important of which are:1945: First Armeno-Egyptian Painters’ Exhibition, Cairo, Egypt.1952: Exhibition of Egyptian artists that studied art in Italy, Cairo, Egypt.1953: Second Armeno-Egyptian Painters’ Exhibition, Alexandria, Egypt.1956: Exhibition of “L’Art Contemporain en Egypte”, Cairo, Egypt.1958: Third -Egyptian Painters’ Exhibition, Cairo, Egypt.1962: Forth -Egyptian Painters’ Exhibition, Cairo, Egypt.1985: A group exhibition held in New York City, USA, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.1985: A group exhibition in Washington, USA, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.2009: In November 2009, AGBU-Cairo in cooperation with el-Hanager Art Center (in Cairo) organized a group exhibition of works by 38 Armeno-Egyptian plastic artists of all 7 generations, to honor Puzant’s memory, on the occasion of his birth centenary.Puzant also held during his life 26 solo exhibitions, including:5 exhibitions held in Cairo, Egypt, in the years 1944, 1950, 1961, 1977 and 1979.2 exhibitions held in Alexandria, Egypt, in the years 1945 and 1951.5 exhibitions held in Beirut, Lebanon, in the years 1959, 1967, 1969, 1972 and 1974.1 exhibition held in Washington D.C., USA, in 1972.4 exhibitions held in Los Angeles, USA, in the years 1973, 1980, 1983 and 1986.1 exhibitions held in Fresno, USA, in 1973.2 exhibitions held in New York, USA, in the years 1975 and 1982.2 exhibitions held in Toronto, Canada, in the years 1978 and 1981.2 exhibitions held in Montreal, Canada, in the years 1978 and 1987.1 exhibition held in Yerevan, Armenia, in 1983.The last Exhibition was held in Altadena, USA, in 1990.Evaluation Unlike Ashod Zorian (q.v.), Puzant Godjamanian early in his creative life surpassed traditional subject matters (like the portrait, the landscape, the still life and the nude), adopting the thematic composition as a basis for his art.Stylistically, after his academic years in Rome (1930-34), his art evolved gradually towards an original type of expressionism, reaching a first step of maturity during 1940s. Like El Greco and Modigliani before him, this style was derived from byzantine iconography which included a specific kind of stylization. It was also derived from 20th century German expressionism. It is a style that is so original that it can be easily identified among a thousand different styles.The content of this art is rich and diversified more than any other Armeno-Egyptian artist of the 4 early generations. It involved tragic reflections from his childhood years in Turkey, indirectly generalizing the tragedy of the Armenian people. Also it includes optimistic reflections from his happier life in Egypt, his new homeland.Egypt provided his art new and fresh subject matters, in a way counter-balancing and compensating the tragic connotations.Puzant’s art comprised three basic periods. The first was naturally a formative one, which already involved the primary expressive elements of his art, including “human relations” and “love towards humanity and nature”.From around mid 1940s, his second period began. This was a period of full maturity, when Puzant exploited in his art its diversified potentialities. His expressionist style reached its peak in this period, when the theme of human relations was materialized through a series of paintings which glorified the life of humble Egyptian fellahs, and also through a series of a generalized type of human relations which reflected some memories of his childhood. In addition to that he widely expressed his love for beauty in nature by a series of paintings which depicted streamlined gazelles.When he moved with his family to USA (in 1972), a new period began in his art, and thanks to his strong personality as well as his deep feelings of nostalgia towards Egypt, There, he did not adopt prevailing ephemeral trends (like several other Armeno-Egyptian artists who immigrated to the West), but he straightforwardly developed in his art a monumentality inspired by ancient Egyptian art.Today, Puzant Godjamanian’s art is considered a heritage which belongs not only to Egyptian and Armenian peoples, but also to all humanity in general. From this viewpoint we highly evaluate his art. Cairo Organizes Large Exhibition Featuring Six Generations of Armenian-Egyptian Artists AGBU Egypt is organizing an exhibition that will for the first time bring together six generations of Armenian-Egyptian artists:An important exhibition of Armeno-Egyptian artists’ works will be inaugurated on Monday 23rd November at 7:30 pm under the auspices of H.E Dr. Farouk Hosny, Egyptian Minister of Culture at the "El Hanager Art Center." besides the Cairo Opera House. The exhibition is a joint cooperation between AGBU Cairo and the El Hanager Art Center and will remain open to the public until 29th November 2009.About 100 artworks of 38 artists will be displayed representing some of the finest works of Armeno-Egyptian artists of different generations. The works have been burrowed from individuals, private collectors and Armenian institutions. The exhibition will also be the occasion to celebrate the birth centenary of the prominent painter Puzant Godjamanian.During the past few months, AGBU Cairo, through the coordinator of the exhibition, Hrant Keshishian and photographer Viken Varjabedian, has been archiving, indexing and photographing Armeno-Egyptian artists’ works. More than 600 paintings and artworks have already been indexed.The paintings which will be displayed will include works of Yervand Demirdjian, Vahram Manavian, Diran Garabedian, Alexandre Saroukhan, Ashod Zorian, Vahan Hovivian, Onnig Avedissian, Arte Topalian, Hampar Hampartsoumian, Puzant Godjamanaian, Simon Shahrikian, Jirayr Palamoudian, John Papasian, Simon Samsonian, Rose Papasian and Elize Partam. The works of contemporary artists will also be displayed, such as the ones of Hovhannes Denkdjian, Armenouhi Jamgotchian, Nora Ipekian, Margrit Baltayan, Hrant Keshishian, Shant Avedissian, Vahe Varjabedian, Sarkis Tossounian, Aline Djizmedjian, Marie Artinian, Vahan Telpian, Armen Agop and Kegham Djeghalian.

Price: 3500 USD

Location: Orange, California

End Time: 2024-10-25T21:06:29.000Z

Shipping Cost: 25 USD

Product Images

Item Specifics

All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted

Artist: Puzant Godjamanian

Signed By: Puzant Godjamanian

Size: Medium

Signed: Yes

Period: Contemporary (1970 - 2020)

Title: "Vow of Spitak"

Material: Canvas, Oil

Region of Origin: California, USA

Framing: Framed

Subject: Community Life, Farming, Figures, Inspirational, Women, Working Life, Armenia

Type: Painting

Year of Production: 1986

Original/Licensed Reproduction: Original

Item Height: 30 1/2 in

Style: Cubism, Expressionism, Figurative Art, Modernism, Postmodernism

Theme: Animals, Cities & Towns, Continents & Countries, Cultures & Ethnicities, Disasters, Domestic & Family Life, Famous Places, History, People, Portrait

Features: One of a Kind (OOAK)

Production Technique: Oil Painting

Country/Region of Manufacture: United States

Item Width: 15 1/2 in

Handmade: Yes

Time Period Produced: 1980-1989