23 facts about Charles Garabedian

Charles Garabedian (Armenian: Չարլզ Կարապետյան, December 29, 1923 – February 11, 2016) was an American-Armenian artist known for his paintings and drawings wealthy in references to Greek and Chinese symbolism. His artwork reveals a severely personal world that explores the link between painting and sculpture.

Garabedian was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Armenian immigrants who had grant the U.S. to leave suddenly the Armenian genocide. Garabedian’s mother died behind he was two and his dad was unable to take care of the three children. Garabedian lived in an orphanage until age nine, when he, his father, and siblings moved to Los Angeles, California.

From 1942-1945, Garabedian served as a staff sergeant in the United States Air Force and was an aerial gunner in the European theater during World War II. Under the sponsorship of the G.I. Bill, Garabedian studied literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 1947 to 1948. He then went upon to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history in 1950. He traditional his master’s degree in 1961 at the University of California Los Angeles. He did not, however, become an artist until difficult in his life.

When in his forties, Garabedian began to explore the contact between painting and drawing. His amalgamation with China is reflected in many of his pieces incorporating dragons and ornate grillwork and pattern. Although his most prolific become old was in the late 1960s, later in his dynamism he yet continued to paint. The first solo exhibition of his perform was held at the Ceeje gallery in Los Angeles (1963) and subsequent one man shows followed at the Fine Arts Gallery at California State University, Northridge (1974), and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (1976). His work exhibitions insert the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial Exhibition: Contemporary American Art, New York (1975) and others. In 1979, he was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fine Arts. In 2011, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art hosted a retrospective of Garabedian’s work. He died upon February 11, 2016 at the age of 92.