Self-Proclaimed Artist and Photographer
Sold October 2010 for: $1,500. Signed “Jansem” in the right-hand corner. Gouache wash, pen and ink on paper. This is what I call humanist expressionist.
One of the quotes I can relate to is, “The act of painting reveals who we are. We are betrayed by what we love.” – Jean Jansem
REPOST: March 10th, 2010: Armenian News – FRENCH ARMENIAN ARTIST JEAN JANSEM AWARDED MEDAL OF HONOR.
The master of contemporary art French Armenian painter Hovhannes Semerjian Jean Jansem was awarded the Medal of Honor for his great contribution to Armenian-French cultural relations, as well as in connection with his 90-year jubilee, press office of the Armenian President reported. The decree was signed by the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan. Jansem, pseudonym of John Hovanes Semerdjian, is a French painter of Armenian origin born in 1920 in Western Armenia. Fleeing persecution, his family left Turkey for Salonika when he was two years. Then he moved to Paris when he was 12 years old. He took night classes at the Academie Montparnasse before joining the National School of Decorative Arts, then the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts. Inspired by artists such as Bruegel and Goya, he paints characters overwhelmed but worthy. His early paintings were dedicated to purely national issues. His heroes were often his children and his mother. He illustrated the works of Cervantes, Franc,ois Villon, Baudelaire, Albert Camus or Federico Garci’a Lorca. In these illustrations the art Jansem unfolds in its splendor. The artist opens unusual, deeply philosophical, emotional and cordial world. Two museums after his name have been open during his life, both in Japan. To date, his works are in a number of prestigious museums in the world, as well as in private collections. Jansem visited Armenia in 1973 for the first time, and in 2001 a series of “Genocide”, consisting of 34 paintings he gifted to the Museum of the Armenian Genocide.