Hakob
Tigranovich Hakobyan

Hakob Hakobyan was born on May 24, 1923 in Alexandria (Egypt), where his family moved to flee from the 1915 massacre. At 9, his parents sent him to study in an Armenian school in Cyprus. In 1941, he returned to Alexandria and entered a textile factory (he had to help his family).

Three years later, Akop moved to Cairo, began to work as a designer and entered the Cairo Royal Higher Art Academy. Here, as a young man, a passion for painting aroused, captivating him more and more: in 1952 he went to study in Paris - the Mecca of artists - where he graduated from the Gran Schomier Academy.

In 1953, the World Festival of Youth and Students was held in Bucharest. The painting, exhibited under the pseudonym Emil, received the second prize of the festival. The author of the picture was Hakob Hakobyan, and he donated it to the Soviet delegation. “I was always worried about the spiritual connection with the motherland, and I always strove to make this connection palpable: to live on my native land, to constantly communicate with my people, my country. The true purpose of my trip to Paris was the dream of leaving home. But in those years I was not able to fulfill my dream. ”

Nine years passed before Hakob Hakobyan and his family were able to move to their true homeland, Armenia. Since 1962, he lives in Leninakan. In 1967, he was elected to the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR, in 1977 he was awarded the State Prize of Armenia and the title of People's Artist of the Republic, in 1987. received the USSR State Prize for creating a series of highly artistic watercolors.

“From the very beginning, after returning — I was then living in Leninakan — I felt: the connection with my native land should be through my landscape, because the closer I got to know Armenian nature, the more faithfully I succumbed to its life-giving and mysterious power. Armenia is a mountainous country, and everywhere I saw steepness, rises, breaks in lines that are related in nature to people who are mobile, cheerful. The character of Saryan, for example, personifies the very soul of our nature. Such is Minas, who managed in his own way, like no one before him, to look at the wilderness of the earth. Both of these artists are for me a unique in their purity example of the primordially Armenian national spirit and character. At first it was difficult for me to adapt to the Armenian landscape, my character was different. I began to look for landscapes that would be consistent with the nature of my nature, and while working on landscapes, I built them according to a horizontal-vertical linear pattern that could express a calm, most static state. ”

“How great is Hakob Hakobyan? I’m afraid that my answer will turn out to be trite to cloying: by the fact that he sees the world in a way that no one else sees. Hakob sees the world not only with the lines of space, but also with color, the secret of which is known to him alone. He tears the cover from nature, whether it be a landscape, a person, gloves.

It penetrates deep into the subject.

In Hakob Hakobyan was a synthesis of two ancient cultures. They say about Saryan that he is colorful, decorative. Hakob returned to Armenian painting the harsh originality of its color, which is sometimes found in ancient Armenian icons.

Hakob Hakobyan is truthful, analytical, generous. But he is restless, aggressive, painful. He does not flatter his native land, but he talks with her on equal terms.

Hakob did not take someone else's place in art, but launched a new branch in it, which, to maturity, flourished splendidly and colorfully. Hakob is not a follower, but a founder. Few creators have such a glorious fate. ”(From the essay“ Generous Hakob ”, authored by A.P. Zlobin)