National Gallery of Armenia

 The profound and prolific art of People’s Artist of Armenia, sculptor Khachatur Iskandaryan (1923–2015) covers portraits of distinguished intellectuals, small sculptures of genre art made with a vibrating surface, unique thematic-compositional sculptures, monumental works, masterly created graphic papers and paintings. His rich legacy occupies an important place in Armenian art.

The exhibition presents Khachatur Iskandaryan from another aspect, focusing on the relationship between the artist and his environment. He has expressed his impressions from his travels around different countries through graphic works and paintings. The city landscapes made in mixed media (oil, watercolour, Indian ink, tempera, pastel, etc.) depict scenes of Armenia, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia and Japan, they present cosy and colourful nooks characteristic of each city.

The small-scale statuettes depicting his close artists, intellectuals and personalities symbolizing the city vividly express the stylistic features of Iskandaryan's art, his unique way of thinking and his warm attitude towards these people; he has presented each person with a typical psychological characteristic (Nikoghayos Nikoghosyan, Gabriel Gyurjian, Aramik Gharibyan, Rafael Chichmanian, Martiros Sarian and others). Iskandaryan, in his turn, as a sculptor and an individual, has always been loved and greatly appreciated by his friends, the artists and townspeople; has experienced and conveyed that love in his artworks. The ensemble "Discussion", for example, depicts Ara Sargsyan, Martiros Sarian, Gabriel Gyurjian, Hakob Kojoyan and his teacher Suren Stepanyan, artists who have played a major role in his life.

Iskandaryan was among the first sculptors to develop small-scale sculptures in Armenian art: "Nikogayos Nikoghosyan had exhibited some of his small sculptures in Yerevan, which I liked very much, so I started making small sculptures". The highly valuable series of small-scale sculptures "Memories of Old Yerevan" is of a documentary nature. The master has reproduced the colour of the capital city once preserved in his childhood memories: the streets, the market, the stalls, the craftsmen and their work ("Photographer Alexander", "Knife and Scissors", "Water Seller Zatik", "Phaeton", "Newsstand", "Young Musicians"). "I used to walk along Astafyan street, Iskandaryan told, I was a little boy, and all these things filled my memory bag, and I wanted to immortalize them and turned them into compositions. I'm happy they became bronze cast sculptures. They are mine. And no one can copy me, will be understood immediately... I am often asked why I create a series of people of old Yerevan, and I answer that I remember the city of my youth with their figures."

Curator: Mariam Davtyan