Gerard
Orakian was born in 1901 in Constantinople (the capital of the
former Ottoman Empire, and the city with the largest concentration
of Armenians in the world). With a well-to-do Armenian father
and a French mother, Gerardo Orakian completed his secondary education
at the famous Getronakan Armenian school. At first he went to
France, but by 1920 he had settled in Rome. There he graduated
from the Academy of Fine Arts and remained in the Italian capital,
where he lived and worked in extreme poverty and isolation until
his death in 1963. His one-man exhibitions in 1947 and 1958 evoked
a wide response in the artistic world. His works were saved in
part by Armenian artists from other countries. Today he is considered
one of the most original Armenian artists of the twentieth century.
Approfondimenti
Khachaturian, Shahen, Armenian Artists. XIXth
and XXth Centuries(text in Armenian, English, and French), 1993.
Filippozi, Mara, "Un espressionista armeno in Italia: Gerardo
Orakian", Gli Armeni in Italia, ed. Boghos Levon Zekiyan,
Rome, 1991, pp. 134-137.
Avedissian, Onnig, Peintres et sculpteurs armeniens, Cairo, 1959,
pp. 301
Viazzi, Glauco, "La Pittura di Gerardo Orakian", Gli
Armeni in Italia, op. cit., pp. 138-140.
Gerard
Orakian was born in 1901 in Constantinople (the capital of the
former Ottoman Empire, and the city with the largest concentration
of Armenians in the world). With a well-to-do Armenian father
and a French mother, Gerardo Orakian completed his secondary education
at the famous Getronakan Armenian school. At first he went to
France, but by 1920 he had settled in Rome. There he graduated
from the Academy of Fine Arts and remained in the Italian capital,
where he lived and worked in extreme poverty and isolation until
his death in 1963. His one-man exhibitions in 1947 and 1958 evoked
a wide response in the artistic world. His works were saved in
part by Armenian artists from other countries. Today he is considered
one of the most original Armenian artists of the twentieth century.
