Beauty, lasts the longest in the world. It is not like a stone dropped by chance on the shore that anyone can pick up. Beauty is the glorious and the unattainable that the artist creates by taking from the global chaos through strong, psychological pain and suffering. 

Hrant Stepanyan’s Self-Portrait, Vanadzor Art Gallery, Vanadzor, Armenia 1948

Armenian artist, born in 1918, in Alexandrapol, died in 1980, in Yerevan Armenia.

Graduated from the Art secondary school in 1937, Yerevan, and from the Art academy in 1946, Riga /Latvia/. Educated at the studio of the artist professor Arijs Skride, he was oriented towards the method of realism, moved to it by perceiving nature and the truth of life, having the experience of the world art.

In a short time he achieves the mastery of clarity and lucidity of colors, universal reflections. Impressions of nature grow more and more sincere, candid and spontaneous, spaces become full of air, human images get well-defined, sharp lines with inner dept.
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True to the traditions of the national art and to the principles of the world classical art, he carries the conception of the real everyday life with its infinite variety, takes the objective reality of the external world, finds in it the inexhaustible picturesque beauty and confirms by his art the idea – “Beautiful is the Life”.

The boundaries of Hrant Stepanyan’s creation are very wide. He has created the canvases of various types, such as historical, genre painting, portraits, landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, revealing equal skills in every genre.

Hrant Stepanyan’s element is the portrait genre. His portrait are not only strong by similarity to the model, but are also precise in personal characteristics, deep in essence, carried out realistically, painted in nuances, they differ from each other by art means.

The style and manner of his art are connected with the progressive art of the 20-th century being its traditional continuation and including the new modern art as well.

In 1963, the Greatest Armenian Artist Martiros Saryan once said: “The artworks of Hrant Stepanyan bring glory not only to Armenian people but also to people of Soviet Union”.

In 1939 at the exhibition, devoted to the 1000th anniversary of the Armenian national epos “David of Sassoun”, H.Stepanyan’s work “Armenians’ Eviction” was given the highest appreciation. This and many other works of his are now at the National Art Gallery of Armenia, at the Museum of Yerevan, At Charent’s Museum of Science and Literature, at Museum of Patriotic War, at Conservatory of Komitas, at home-museum of Kh. Abovian, at Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and many other galleries and private collections abroad.

In 1972 a catalogue of Hrant Stepanyan’s private exhibition was published by the Painters’ Union of Armenia and in 1981 a posthumous album as well as information in Brief Dictionary of the Armenian Artists and in Armenian Brief Encyclopedia, encyclopedia ” Luys”, USA, that was published in the year 2005. I the year 2008, he was included in the Catalogue, published by the National Gallery of Armenia.

The album of his paintings was published in the year 2008 and was dedicated to the
90th anniversary of the artist.

There are many articles about him published in Armenian and international newspapers and journals.