TEHRAN -- A ceremony was held at the Iranian Artists Forum on Wednesday in memory of the late Iranian-Armenian artist Marcos Grigorian.

Grigorian, who is recognized as a pioneer of Iranian modern art, died from a heart attack at his home on August 27 in Armenia. He was 82.
Veteran artist Aidin Aghdashlu talked about Marcos and his artworks. He said, “There is much that can be said about Marcos and his art which is of great importance. His influence can be observed in every part of our art and culture. He was one of those people who impart a special meaning to life.
“Marcos experienced great restlessness throughout his life and his art is rooted in this impulsiveness. Whenever he felt inspired to take up a new style or technique, he would become excited and impatient to put it into practice by creating new artworks.
“He was a collector, a film actor and a gallery owner. He was particularly interested in the style of Arshile Gorky, an Armenian abstract expressionist painter (1904-1948), and he had a private collection of his works,” he added.
His niece Janet Lazarian also participated in the ceremony and said that Marcos had, before his death, donated all his works and collections to Armenia’s one and only museum. She added that every in-coming Armenian minister of culture had promised to establish a museum for his works but that it had never been accomplished.
“Marcos himself later wrote a letter to the cultural officials of Armenia asking them to return his works and to convert his own house into a museum. However he never received a reply in his lifetime. There is still no answer,” She stated.
She went on to say, “The only way open to us is to make a heartfelt appeal for the establishment of a museum to house his works, so we are going to get a petition together and deliver it to the Armenian Embassy in Tehran.”
At the end of the ceremony, Mir Ahmad Mirehsan talked about the avant-garde nature of Grigorian’s works.
Aryasp Dadbeh made a speech about the various influences of the Iranian and Armenian cultures.
The participating artists signed the petition.
Marcos was born into an Iranian Armenian family which emigrated from Russia to Iran in 1930. He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome. In 1954, Grigorian returned to Iran from Rome and opened the Galerie Esthetique in Tehran.
Grigorian’s artworks encompass a wide range of themes; his first paintings depict the violent despair of the victims of Auschwitz. Later, turning to sculpture, his works were dominated by such themes as Persian bread, abgusht (a type of Persian soup) and wheelbarrows full of straw.
He is also renowned for the sculptures which he crafted from a combination of clay and straw. Grigorian was also fond of teahouse paintings.
Some of his works are now on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Kerman, and the Armenian National Gallery