Paul Guiragossian

Paul Guiragossian was born in Jerusalem to Armenian parents who were survivors of the 1915 genocide. Educated in Jerusalem boarding schools and Franciscan art studios, he and his family fled to Beirut as refugees in 1948. He later studied painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence and the Cité internationale des arts in Paris.

Guiragossian became one of the most celebrated and internationally collected painters in the Arab world. His signature canvases feature dense crowds of elongated, faceless human figures huddled together in vertical swathes of vibrant, jewel-toned pigment, expressing maternal tenderness, exile, human solidarity, and transcendent resilience.