Vartan Mahokian was born in 1869 in Trabzon, in Turkey, on the shores of the Black Sea.

He attended Sanassarian primary school in Erzerum and completed his artistic training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin in 1891 under the supervision of E. Brecht and G.-F. Güde.

While on a visit to Theodosia in 1894 he met the painter Aïvazovski. The following year in 1895, back in his city, he miraculously escaped the Trabzon Pogroms. And for several years, he travelled all around Europe, organising group exhibitions as he went. In 1908, he returned to Trabzon. He had to flee again, however, in 1915, this time to escape the genocide. He then settled permanently in Nice.

The “Lambert” gallery in Marseille, devoted a solo exhibition to him in 1923. Two years later in 1925, he exhibited at the “Allard” gallery in Paris. He was awarded the Légion d’Honneur [the highest French order of merit]. His last solo exhibitions in 1932 and 1936 took place in Nice where he died a year later.

Mainly a marine painter, he has left us works full of sensitivity where, despite his tumultuous existence, he plays with reflections as if to gain tranquillity.