Sureniants, Vardges

Suren’iants, Vardges 

Born Feb. 27, 1860, in Akhaltsikhe, Georgia; died Apr. 6, 1921, in Yalta. Armenian painter and graphic artist.

Suren’iants studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture from 1876 to 1879 and graduated from the Munich Academy of Fine Arts in 1885. After living in Moscow and St. Petersburg, he moved to Yalta in 1917. In 1894 he began showing his works with the Society of Wandering Art Exhibitions, which he joined in 1910. Striving to convincingly portray the surrounding world, Suren’iants was the first Armenian painter to turn to the historical genre, for example, The Holy Image Trampled (1895, Armenian Art Gallery, Yerevan). Some of his works were inspired by poetic legends, for example, Semiramis at the Corpse of Ar the Fair (1899, Armenian Art Gallery).

Suren’iants also painted portraits and landscapes, designed theater scenery, and illustrated books, for example, A. S. Pushkin’s The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1899).

REFERENCE

Gorian, P. Vardges Suren’iants, 1860–1921. Yerevan, 1973.