Paul Guiragossian

Paul Guiragossian was born in Jerusalem, Palestine in 1926 to survivors of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. He completed his formative education at the Ratisbonne seminary of the Salesian community of St. Don Bosco in Bethlehem. He was taken on as an apprentice in the making of stained glass and in the 1930s trained in the studio of Italian painter Fernando Manetti. He also learned Arabic calligraphy with a local sheikh. In 1948, Guiragossian’s family left with the Palestinian exodus (al-nakba) and settled in the Trad refugee camp in Bourj Hammoud, a northern suburb of Beirut. Guiragossian worked as an art instructor in local Armenian schools. He received a scholarship from the Italian Cultural Center in Lebanon, after having won prizes at the Salons du Printemps and the Salons d’Automne, to study at the Academia di Belle Arti in Florence in 1957-1958. Later, in 1962, he received a grant from the French government to study at Les Ateliers des maîtres de l’École de Paris. Guiragossian was a prolific artist, participating in over 30 group exhibitions in Beirut alone. Among his solo exhibitions in Beirut were Galerie Alecco Saab (1960, 1962, 1963), Galerie L’Amateur (1967, 1968, 1969), Studio 27 (1972, 1973, 1974) and Modulart (1974). In addition to painting, he designed theatre sets for the playwright Jalal Khoury. He won several prizes, including notably the French Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1984. His work features in numerous collections worldwide.