Hagop Gurdjian 1881–1948
An Armenian sculptor, born in 1881 in Shushi, a town in what is now Nagorno-Karabakh, and died in Paris in 1948. He came to France in 1907 and studied at the Académie Julian until 1910 and also in Rodin’s studio. He produced many portraits, including those of Maxim Gorky, Sergei Rachmaninoff and the famous Armenian writers, Arshag Chobanian and Shirvanzade.
A participant in the Russian revolution in Moscow, he was asked by Lenin, whom he had met in Paris in 1911, to design a monument to the glory of Karl Marx; during that period he also made portraits of many revolutionaries.
He returned to Paris permanently in 1921.
Throughout his career he took interest in legendary female figures (Leda, Diana, Cleopatra and Salome), and was also an excellent animal sculptor.
In 1945, he exhibited a bust of Kapekine Hovsepian at the Salon des Artistes Libres Arméniens [Exhibition of Free Armenian Artists] in Paris.
Frédéric Fringhian