Background
His father Garbis was from Konya and his mother from Kayseri. His father Garbis Ihmalyan was also an amateur painter.
His father Garbis was from Konya and his mother from Kayseri. His father Garbis Ihmalyan was also an amateur painter.
In 1936, Jak graduated from a private Catholic Secondary School, then he attended a French high school, and finally graduated from a Turkish High School. In 1942 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Painting Department of Istanbul.
Dino soon thereafter became a tutor to Jak Ihmalyan. In 1939 he actively participated in communist revolutionary activity by sympathizing with the Turkish Communist Party, TKP. However, he continued to paint in his workshop in Istanbul. After he gained his diploma, he was arrested for his political activities in 1944, after being set free, he was arrested again in 1946.
He spent a total of nearly 4 years in prison.
In 1948, at the end of his detention, he continued painting image building and started to write poetry. He began painting for the Armenian children"s magazine "Bardez" or garden in Armenian.
He also worked for the newly founded Armenian "Nor Or" newspaper. After gaining his passport, he went to Lebanon where he remained there for seven years.
He became an art teacher to a few art academies in Beirut.
In 1956, Jak Ihmalyan travels to Warsaw, Poland, he worked as a caricaturist for the Polish Communist Party.He made banners in honor of Nazim Hikmet"s famous poem "Güneşi içenlerin Türküsü" or Ballad of the Sun Smokers. Jak Ihmalyan soon moved to Beijing, China in 1959. He worked for the Communist radio"s and studied Chinese folkloric and contemporary art scene.
In 1961, he went to the Soviet Union where he remained for the rest of his life.
He worked as an editor for the first two years on the radio. He was appointed as a lecturer at Moscow State University in 1963 in the Institute of Eastern Languages of Turcology.
His workshop was located in the street of Taniyevih Arbat in the lower floor of an old building. He organized various exhibitions in Moscow from 1968-1978.
Jak Ihmalyan died in April 1978 at the age of 56, in Moscow but had his body cremated in Yerevan.
In 1974 he became a member of the Soviet Union Painters Committee.