Assadour Bezdikian

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Assadour Bezdikian, widely known as Assadour, is a Lebanese Armenian artist born in 1943 in a northern Beirut suburb. Assadour’s paintings often feature a world seen through a kaleidoscope of geometric forms and algebraic formulas, physics, colour theory and engineering. From a young age, he nurtured a passion for art, pursuing lessons with Paul Guiragossian and winning a scholarship to study classical painting at the Pietro Vannucci Academy in Perugia, Italy. Immersed in Italy’s artistic heritage and inspired by the Renaissance, he developed an affinity for drawing and the sciences. While in Europe, he became interested in art movements such as Constructivism, Abstraction and Expressionism, all responses to the technological and scientific advancement of the modernist period. He currently lives and works in Paris, though the majority of his life is characterised by a nomadic lifestyle, echoing the themes of identity and un-rootedness in his work. He became a prominent figure in the Beirut art scene despite swimming against the current of movements and subjects that inspired his peers. Assadour has exhibited works in Beirut at the Sursock Museum’s Salons d’Automne (1962, 1963, 1964), Gallery One (1963, 1964), Galerie L’Amateur (1966, 1969) and Modulart (1972, 1975). He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Gold Medal at the Terza Biennale Internazionale Della Grafica d’Arte, Florence (1972) and the Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris (1984). In 2022, Osthaus Museum in Hagen dedicated a major retrospective.