A French painter of Armenian origin, born in Samsun on the Black Sea, in 1907 and died in Paris in 1980. After his parents were massacred in 1915, he was taken in by an American orphanage in Corfu in 1917 where he learned to play the violin with his friend, the future surrealist painter Leon Tutundjian (1906-1968). In 1924 he was sent to the Mekhitarist College in Milan, and four years later he was enrolled at the “Brera” Academy of Fine Arts. His first solo exhibition opened in Milan in 1933. He spent the next years in Switzerland, and settled in Paris in 1939. Mainly a portraitist, he gradually turned to landscapes and seascapes. Visiting Armenia in 1967 and again in 1978, he found inspiration for numerous paintings, many of which are reproduced in the book, “Chant d'Arménie” [Song of Armenia], published by his son, Claude Mutafian. He held more than thirty exhibitions in Europe, America and the Middle East and participated in most of the major collective events. He also leaves us a series of publications, articles and books on the history of art. His writings were in an Armenian that drew great admiration.

Frédéric Fringhian