Paul Guiragossian

Paul Guiragossian (1926 to 1993) was an artist, born in Jerusalem to an Armenian family, who worked in oil, watercolour and pen in Beirut. His subjects were his family, himself and unnamed figures, with the mother and child returning often. He painted elongated figures with long vertical strokes, which call to mind Byzantine icons. From the late 1960s he also made abstract canvases, setting colour in blocks beside areas left bare.

In the early 1940s the family lived in Jaffa, and he studied at Studio Yarkon there. After settling in Bourj Hammoud, north of Beirut, he taught art in Armenian schools and worked as an illustrator. His early portraits of people from the neighbourhood were in charcoal on paper and oil on Masonite. Autoportrait (Self-Portrait), 1948, is an oil on canvas of 54.5 x 39.5 cm. Femmes en Conversation (1951) and Juliette et Mano (1955) are both painted on Masonite. Silence (1968) is a large oil on canvas, 165 x 120 cm. He painted some of his largest works in Paris from 1989 to 1991.

The Prix de Florence (1956) funded his study at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze from 1957 to 1958. In 1962 a French government scholarship sent him to Les Ateliers des Maîtres de l'École de Paris. Solo shows included the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC (1970), and the Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris (1991). Later solo shows were held at the Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah (2018) and the Bassam Freiha Art Foundation, Abu Dhabi (2026). His work appeared in the 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015) and at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2017). In 1984 France named him a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Collections holding his work include Mathaf, the Centre Pompidou, the British Museum and the Sursock Museum.