Fine art
Armenia and its capital city, Yerevan, have always inspired many Armenian artists. Depicting the Armenian nature in its diversity the masters of Armenian landscape painters have been able to express its special colours and mood enriching those landscapes with their emotional sensitivity. And all this emerge from their great love for their native land, Armenia and Yerevan.
It’s symbolic that painters had great contribution to the foundation of Yerevan History Museum in 1931. Since the very beginning of the museum operation G. Gyurjyan and Taragros were the members of the Scientific Council of the museum.
In 1937 famous Armenian painters M. Saryan, S. Arakelyan, G. Gyurjyan, P. Terlemezyan and others organized an exhibition dedicated to Yerevan and the fine arts collection of the museum was founded with their canvas.
In the course of time the collection of fine arts of the museum has expanded and has been enriched and the works of art exhibited here were collected both by purchasing and in the form of donations.. In 1987 the executive committee of the Yerevan city council presented the museum eight valuable paintings painted by the artists of the Austrian, German, French and Russian schools.
Im 1989 an exhibition of modern Armenian painters was organized after which 15 works of art were handed to the Yerevan History Museum.
The fine arts collection of the museum consists of four parts: paintings, graphics, posters and sculpture. The paintings group includes 400 works of art by 100 authors. 150 of the paintings are landscapes of Yerevan. This fund also includes the paintings presented to the capital by the delegations from sister cities of Yerevan during their visits of friendship. The collection outstands with the pictures of Yerevan in the 1920-30s with its flat roofs, one-storey houses, cosy nooks, backyards depicted in different seasons, at different time of the day.
Besides their artistic value these paintings are of great documental significance as during the reconstruction of the city many old buildings, streets, quarters, even architectural monuments were demolished and today, looking at these pictures we can imagine how old Yerevan used to look.
The group of graphics includes works of art by A. Mamajanyan, G. Hovsepyan, A. Gharibyan, P. Shillingovski and others the theme of which is again Yerevan as well as the works of art by M. Abeghyan on the theme of the Great Patriotic war. Unique works are the ones by Mashkov depicting the Russian-Persian war.
The group of sculpture years later has been replenished with the donation of the marble sculpture “The key of Yerevan” by L. Tokmajyan and with the sculptures by Kh. Iskandaryan dedicated to Yerevan.
Many samples of the painting collection of the museum have been exhibited many times both at the museum and at the exhibitions organized outside it.