Minas Avetisian

Born on July 20 1929, in the little Armenian village of Jajur

Leningrad, with its Academy of Fine Arts and its Hermitage, played a significant role in Avetisian's becoming an artist. Avetisian always remembered with gratitude his teachers, Johannson, Zaitsev and Khudiakov. They never hindered the natural expression of his artistic individuality. Both in his student years and after graduating from the Academy, Avetisian traveled widely around Armenia, eagerly seeking out historical monuments; he studied the Armenian miniature and the works of the greatest Armenian artists, above all, Martiros Saryan's.

Avetisian's real emergence as an artist was at the "Exhibition of Five" in Yerevan in 1962.