Jean Jansem, Les Quais a Venise, 1966

Description

Artist: Jean Jansem (French/Armenian, 1920-2013)
Title: Les Quais a Venise
Year: 1966
Medium: Color lithograph
Edition: Numbered 127/160 in pencil … more Artist: Jean Jansem (French/Armenian, 1920-2013)
Title: Les Quais a Venise
Year: 1966
Medium: Color lithograph
Edition: Numbered 127/160 in pencil
Paper: Arches paper
Image size: 18.5 x 24 inches
Signature: Hand signed in pencil by the artist
Condition: Very good
Frame Framed in a custom light wood and gold frame, with gold color bevel and fabric matting

About the artist:
Hovhannes "Jean" Semerdjian (Armenian: 9 March 1920 – 27 August 2013), also known as Jean Jansem, was a French-Armenian painter. Jansem's artworks are internationally known, and are part of museum collections throughout France, Japan and the United States. A Foreign member of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia (2002).
He was awarded by the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1953 and by the Knight of the French Legion of Honour in 2003. The President of Armenia awarded Jansem a Medal of Honor for his “reinforcement of Armenian-French cultural ties.”

Hovhannes Semerdjian was born in 1920 in Bursa, Turkey. In 1922, his family fled to Greece. He spent his childhood in Thessaloniki. They arrived to Issy-les-Moulineaux suburb of Paris, France in 1931 when he was 11 and that is when he begin to paint. The first professional schools for Jansem became free academies of Montparnasse (1934-1936). He studied in the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs. His teachers were Brianshon, Legjon and Udon. Jansem also studied at the Sabatie studio for a year. Early paintings by Jansem were mainly to national issues. He had individual exhibitions in Paris, New York, Chicago, London, Tokyo, Rome, Brussels, Lausanne, Beirut etc. Hovhannes Semerdjian was elected the President of the Young Artists' Saloon in 1956.
He won the Comparison prize in Mexico in 1958. In Japan, two museums were built to honor Jansem′s work, located in Tokyo Ginza and Nagano Prefecture Azumino. In 1973 he visited Armenia for the first time. In 2001, 34 of his paintings were given to the Armenian Genocide Museum.

Jansem’s primary sources of inspiration were Goya and Brueghel. His mother and his children were the main heroes in his earlier works. Jansem was characterized as a miserablist, an artist of unfortunate people.[5]
On 10 March 2010, the day after Jansem's 90th birthday, during a visit to France, the President of Armenia awarded Jansem a medal of honour saying the following, "Our nation is proud of you and values highly your art. While living outside Armenia, you have made our country more recognizable, extending our nation's good name all over the world."
Jansem died on 27 August 2013, aged 93, outside Paris.
Awards


Jansem has held exhibitions of his work in France (Paris, Amiens, Nantes, Avignon, Marseille, Nancy, Toulouse, Cannes, Mulhouse, Bayonville, Clermont-Ferrand...) and in other countries (Rome, Palermo, Lausanne, New-York, Chicago, Palm-Beach, London, Brussels, Montréal, Tokyo, Osaka, Beirut, Sao Paolo, Johannesburg, Germany, Art Expo New York and Los Angeles.

EXHIBITIONS
Galerie Doucet, Paris.1951
Galerie Hervé, Paris.1954, 1956, 1959, 1963
Wally Findlay Galleries, New York, Chicago, Palm Beach. 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1970, 1973
Galerie David et Garnier, Paris. 1965
Galerihe Lefevre Gallery, Londres 1966, 1968, 1972
Galerihe Lefevre Gallery, Londres Isy Brachot, Bruxelles, "Rétrospective". 1967
Galerie Moyon-Avenard, Nantes.1968, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1985,
Galerie Maurice Garnier, Paris 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977
Galerie Mitsukoshi, Tokyo. Rétrospective". 1974
Galerie Matignon, Paris. 1978, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1993
The Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg.1979, 1983
Châteauneuf-du-Pape."Rétrospective". 1979
Château de Val."Rétrospective". 1986
Château de Sedières."Rétrospective". 1986
Prntemps Ginza, Tokyo."Rétrospective des lithographies". 1993
Several exhibitions in Japan organized by Mainichi Communications Inc in 1996
1996
Exhibitions in Japanese museums
Azumino Jansem Museum
Navio Museum in Osaka
Daimaru Museum in Tokyo
1997
Exhibition "Atelier" - Matignon Gallery in Paris
Exhibition "Nature morte" - Flora Jansem Gallery in Paris
1998
Saga Paris - drawings, etchings, lithographs
Osaka - Gallery Hayakawa - drawing
Tokyo - Printemps Ginza - painting, drawing

Museum Collections:
France: Modern Art Museum, Paris; Poitiers Museum; Fontainebleau Museum; Ennery Museum
Japan: Jansem Museum, Tokyo; Azumino Jansem Museum, Nagano-Ken.
Russia: Modern Art Museum, Moscow
Armenia: National Museum ; Genocide Memorial of Armenia, Yerevan less