Giurdzhian, Gabriel Mikaelovich

Born Apr. 12 (24), 1892, in Artvin, in present-day Turkey. Soviet painter. People’s Artist of the Armenian SSR (1945).

Giurdzhian graduated from the Penza Higher Arts and Pedagogical Studio (1920). From 1922 he worked in Armenia. He painted numerous landscapes, including some of industrial subjects: Bridge Across the Razdan River (1923), Shirak Canal (1926). Sevan: Zangstroi (1936), Sunny Day: Sevan (1940), Spring in Armenia (1945), The Azat River in the Garni Gorge (1945), Morning in Old Goris (1954), Ruins of the Medieval Fortress of Sevan (1958)—all of which are in the Armenian Picture Gallery in Yerevan. He also painted The Dzorages Dam (1930) and The Cotton Picking (1949), which are displayed in the Tret’iakov Gallery in Moscow, and Spring in Mikoian (1945), which is displayed in the Arts Museum of the Peoples of the East, Moscow. Beginning in 1923, Giurdzhian taught in Yerevan’s educational institutions: from 1945 to 1958 he taught at the Art Institute, from 1947 as professor. He organized the first mobile fine arts workshop in the USSR (1939). He is the author of a number of articles and books. During the years 1951–59 and 1968–69, Giurdzhian was the chairman of the Union of Artists of the Armenian SSR. He has been awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, as well as medals.