H. Galentz. Sketch of altar altar Virgin Mary for the St. Nshan Church. Beirut. 1940. At present, the altar altar Virgin Mary is in the Museum of Armenian Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia, Antelias, Lebanon.
Haroutiun Galentz and Armine Baronian’s wedding ceremony at the altar of St. Nshan Church (Holy Cross), Beirut. 1943. Galentz was the author of the altar Virgin Mary.
Haroutiun Galentz was a prolific Armenian painter. He was well-known for his works "Spring", "Autumn in Hrazdan Riverside", and portrait of Maya Plisetskaya, among others. His paintings are also in the collections of National Gallery of Armenia in Yerevan, Yerevan Modern Art Museum, Republic of Armenia’s Cultural Ministry as well as private collections in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Tbilisi, New York, Paris, Vienna and Beirut.
Background
Haroutiun Galentz was born on March 27, 1910 in Gurun, Ottoman Empire (now Turkey). His parents were wealthy people; his father Tiratur owned a wool-dying factory which left a profound impression on young Galentz with its vats of bright colours. In 1915, during the Armenian genocide, Galentz’ father was taken away by Turkish soldiers, never to be seen again. Galentz along with his three brothers and mother escaped to Aleppo, Syria. A few days after their arduous trek into Aleppo, Galentz’ mother Almast died of starvation and fatigue.
Galentz and his three brothers spent their childhood and youth in an Aleppo orphanage. Despite the hardships of life in the orphanage, Galentz began cultivating his passion for arts in part by encouragement from one of the orphanage sisters. He often escaped the orphanage to roam around the Aleppo markets and paint. French art historians called him "the man who had no childhood".
Education
In 1922, at the age of 12, Galentz left the orphanage to become an apprentice to a lithographer and later received his primary artistic education from Onik Avetisyan in Aleppo. Later, from 1929 to 1933, French painter Claude Michelet was Galentz's teacher in Beirut Academy of Fine Arts.
Haroutiun Galentz lived in Aleppo until he was 17; he rented a studio, began to paint and sell portraits and genre paintings, thus already gaining some fame. In 1927, he moved to Tripoli, Lebanon, settled in the Photo Studio, which his two elder brothers had already opened there, and translated his surname Kharmandaian into Galentz.
In Tripoli he met the French painter Claude Michellet, by setting basis for their long-lasting friendship and collaboration. They travelled a lot together throughout Lebanon and Syria, setting up various exhibition-sales.
In 1930 Galentz moved to the capital of Lebanon - Beirut, where upon Michellet’s request, he began to run the Art Studio adjacent to Michellet’s workshop, by providing classes of painting and graphics. Soon afterwards Galentz set up his own studio.
In 1931 Galentz took part in the Young Artists Exhibition. In a year Galentz became one of the initiators of the establishment of the Union of Art Lovers and participated in all the group exhibitions, as well as set up solo ones.
Haroutiun Galentz taught painting at the Beirut Academy of Fine Arts from 1933 until 1939. In 1938 he took into apprenticeship a young woman by the name of Armine Paronyan (Galentz), who later became his wife. In May 1938, Galentz presented his ”Portrait of the Bedouin Woman” in the exhibition of the Union of Art Lovers.
In 1940 by the order of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Galentz created the figure of St. Mary for the alter in St. Nishan Church in Beirut. Tigran Gupeseryan was the architect who had come to Beirut from France, so Galentz and he became close friends.
In 1943 Galentz painted Claude Michulet’s portrait, by presenting it at the exhibition held by the Artists’ Union of Lebanon on July 8, 1943. In 1945 he created a voluminous mosaic for the lobby of the “Regent Hotel” in Beirut, which was destroyed during the wartime, and ornamented the dome of the Monastery Zmmar in Lebanon.
In June 1946 Galentz expatriated to Yerevan, Armenia. The next year he participated in a group show organized to exhibit the works of newly expatriated painters. He also participated in group exhibitions organized by the Artists Union and held several solo shows in Yerevan and in Moscow.
Between 1948 and 1956 were years of hardship, idleness and poverty with his meager earning, due to ”hackwork”. Galentz, in fact, stopped creating.
A slight remission of the tension, depression and forced idleness was discerned in the mid 50’s. Galentz’s studio began to revive, turning into a meeting point for the leading intellectuals, scientists, actors, writers and open-minded individuals.
In 1957 Galentz met Artem Alikhanyan, influential individual and art collector, becoming friends with him. From then on Alikhanyan had become Galentz’s sponsor and the follower of his art. Galentz became known among wider circles of the intelligentsia in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as among many scientists from abroad.
Galentz got acquainted with Levon Mkrtchyan in 1959; that meeting set basis for a long-lasting friendship.
In 1959 on his own initiative, Artem Alikhanyan exhibited Galentz’s works in his apartment in Moscow, later on transferring the exhibition to Moscow Institute of Physics. As a result Galents received a lot of orders. His works were purchased by outstanding Russian scientists, writers and actors, such as A. Migdal, L. Artsimovich, L. Okun, S. Kapitsa, I. Ehrenburg, M. Plisetskaya, L. Brik, and others.
In 1961 another ”non-official” exhibition was held in the apartment of Boris Piotrovsky, the Director of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
The first and the only solo exhibition, ever held in Armenia during the artist’s lifetime, was opened in the Artists’ Union in 1962 in Yerevan.
Haroutiun Galentz died of heart attack on May 7, 1967, at the age of 57, in Yerevan, Armenia. Due to his wife Armine Galentz’s efforts, in 1968 one year after Galentz’s death, the Gallery-Studio after Haroutiun Galentz was opened in Yerevan with the status of a ”non-governmental institution” which was unprecedented in the former Soviet Union.
Haroutiun Galentz was awarded the Medal of Merit by the presidium of International Exhibitions in New York in 1939, and the honorary prize by the Lebanon Government for his bas-reliefs in the Pavilion of Lebanon presented at the New York International exhibition.
In 1965 Galentz was awarded the title of Honorary Artist of Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). In 1967 Haroutiun Galentz was posthumously awarded the Armenian SSR State Prize in the field of literature and art for the portraits of A. Gitovich, S. Barseghyan, A. Alikhanyan, as well as for the paintings "Tulips", "The Kurdish Women", "Our Yard", "Spring" and "The Hrazdan Gorge".
In addition, Alexander Gitovich dedicated one of his poems to Galentz. Galentz is one of the heroes of "People without childhood" by Antranig Dzarugian.
Besides, his paintings are also in the collections of National Gallery of Armenia in Yerevan, Yerevan Modern Art Museum, Republic of Armenia’s Cultural Ministry as well as private collections in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Tbilisi, New York, Paris, Vienna, Beirut, Aleppo, Cambridge, San Francisco, Los Angeles
Haroutiun Galentz became one of the founding members of the Union of Art Lovers in 1932. In June 1946 he became a member of the Artists’ Union of Armenia, but two years later he was deprived from his membership. Fortunately, in 1951 a decision was made during the session of the USSR Artists’ Union to restore the candidacy of Haroutiun Galentz as a member of the Artists’ Union.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Henrik Igityan: "Looking at the radiant, cheerful paintings of Galents, remembering his kind uistful eyes, one finds it impossible to realize that this quiet sad man is the author of those bright optimistic poetic tales."
Connections
In 1938 Galentz met his future wife Armine Paronyan in his studio in Beirut. Haroutiun Galentz and Armine got married on May 2, 1943, in the St. Nishan Church in Beirut, Lebanon. Armen, their first child, was born in February 1944. In October 1946 Galentz’s second son Saro was born.
