FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION

His remarkable career began in 1969, when a magnificent new museum was built in Aleppo. The nineteen year-old artist's paintings were chosen for the inaugural exhibition. The festive affair was attended by VIP's from the Russian Embassy in Damascus, who noticed Varoujan's work. The Russian dignitaries offered to enroll him in the ultra-selective Institute of Fine Arts in Yerevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia.

YEARS OF STUDY IN YEREVAN, ARMENIA

Varoujan left Aleppo in 1969 for Soviet Armenia to dedicate himself to the pursuit and study of fine arts. He was one of only seven new students enrolled that year in the Academy of Fine Arts.

"By this time, my father was in tears," Varoujan recalls. "He challenged me. Was I not intelligent enough to enter medicine?" Trying to please his father, Varoujan interrupted his art studies for a year and entered the Institute of Medicine. His grades were excellent, but he was miserable! He asked the Minister of Education in Yerevan to let him return to Art school. "No one switches from Medicine to Art," he said. "But you... you are crazy. Be my guest."

Soviet Socialist Realism was the style in those days, Varoujan calls. "Do you know what it looked like? Very somber. Preferably factory workers, soldiers or peasants. And my soul needed color and poetry!" He painted just the way he wanted and took care to give the paintings the proper Communist-sounding titles. By then there was almost no connection between his paintings and their titles. It was the only way he could continue to exhibit his art. He soon received his Master's Degree and began work on a Ph.D. in Art.

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