Abstract Serigraphy by Vahan P. Amadouni

Description

Vahan P. Amadouni is an artist whose work has found critical acceptance both in Europe, the United States and the … more Vahan P. Amadouni is an artist whose work has found critical acceptance both in Europe, the United States and the Mideast. Born in ancient Armenia in June 1933, he took his early schooling there before venturing abroad. His drawing ability attracted the attention of an uncle in Pennsylvania, so with his sponsorship he was able to immigrate to the U.S. and enroll in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He studied there for the next seven years, during which time he won the Thouron Prize for the best composition in 1955. In 1956, he won the William Emlen Cresson Prize. He then participated in a large juried show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and won both a Purchase Award and an Honorable Mention.

After his graduation, he moved to California where he had one man shows, "Discovery III" at the Bolles Gallery, and in 1962 at the M.H. deYoung Memorial Museum in San Francisco.

Returning to Europe, he had an exhibition at the Trastevere Gallery in Rome, and one of his larger works was purchased by the Gallerie de France in Paris. Again abroad in 1973, his one-man show at the Alex Manoogian Art Gallery in Beirut, Lebanon was both a critical and financial success, selling out on opening night.

It had taken Amadouni one full year of preparation for the show. Following his return from the Middle East, he won a New York State Change Grant. Shortly after in 1974 he was commissioned to paint and decorate the main alter of Our Lady of Pompei Church in N.Y.C. In 1979 he devoted his time to a private sponsor, continuing preparations for a one-man show, which was presented at the Gregg Juarez Gallery (Los Angeles) in the summer of 1983.

CRITICAL COMMENTS
"Amadouni one of the most singularly powerful brush wielders to arrive in this region since World War II. Despite his youth, he has welded international elements into an art of such maturity that a dominant person seems virtually assured for him."
Dean Wallace, San Francisco Chronicle

"He's a first class artist, and set against the right sort of background and with the right sort of light some of his paintings make an excellent effect."San Francisco NEWS

"Amadouni makes a problem of light on an all-black surface of varying texture, and he often contrives surfaces of great richness."ART NEWS Summer 1960

"Amadouni has strong affinities with Pierre Soulages and the late Franz Kline, but he is independent of either and is quite as powerful and individual as they. All three of these artists presuppose that great towering engineered forms of the modern environment and could scarcely have existed without it, although all three go far beyond any mere suggestion of external atmosphere on their work. Amadouni is a newcomer in San Francisco, and a very welcome one."Alfred Frankenstein, San Francisco Chronicle less