Hagopian is the artist-poet of sorrow and wisdom of Armenia. He was born in Egypt in 1923 yet other art historian tend to believe that he was born in 1928, fourteen years after the Armenian Genocide. Even though, he never physically witnessed the horrors of the massacre of the Armenian people, the pain and suffering of victims and beloved ones left deep scars on his art and his visions of the world. The effects of the Genocide will dramatically influence his art in the years to come. He  studied at the Melkonian Armenian school in Cyprus and later on, attended  the  Grande Chaumiere Academy of Arts in Paris, France. In 1963, at the age of forty, he emigrated to the homeland of his parents for the first time. It was a new world for him at a psychological level. Although Armenian by origin and culture, Melkonian at the beginning, did not totally fit in his new world.  But he grew to love his new “old” country. A country older than the dawn of civilization. At that time in history, Armenia was not a free country. It was under the Russian domination. An impoverished country despite its enormous but unexploited natural resources. He was sadly taken by the landscape of Armenia and the emotional comportment of its inhabitants. Thus, when he painted a landscape, a bunch of trees, people faces, rivers, even daily domestic objects,  the emotions of distress, loneliness and sadness covered the whole terrain of his canvases. The trees were pale, the human faces were pales and the sky was pale. Everything seemed fragile, feeble and “pale”. A disastrous emotional state of mind but, honest and emotionally charged  with inquietude, fear, hope, determination and confusion. Hagopian constantly wondered in his art.  His style was pensive, meditative and vagabond, yet, it had all the elements of a deep artistic expression and the characteristics of a very singular style.

Photos from left to right: Mannequin, 1961, Chagrin, 1961, Quietude, 1970.