Sarkis Antikajian
Amman, Armenian family
Sarkis Antikajian was born in Amman in 1933 to Armenian parents and spent part of his childhood in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.
- 57 years at Maude Kerns Art Center
- 2009 retrospective, Oregon Art Beat
- Best of Show, Emerald Art Center
- 35 years a pharmacist, then painting
“The worst enemy for an artist is boredom in our work and in our way of life.”
He decided to become a painter in high school, after finding a book on Impressionism. His parents wanted a doctor; he took a chemistry degree, came to the United States in 1958 and trained as a pharmacist at the University of New Mexico. In 1966 he and his wife found Oregon, and that same year he joined the Maude Kerns Art Center in Eugene.
For 35 years his pharmacy shift started at 1 p.m., so his mornings went to the center's open figure and painting studios, which he eventually ran.
In 2009 his retrospective filled both Maude Kerns galleries, and Oregon Art Beat filmed him at work. He paints in oil, acrylic, watercolor and pastel; critics hear Van Gogh in his color, and the Russian-American painters Sergei Bongart and Nicolai Fechin. He lives on six acres in Cheshire and paints his own garden, the way Monet painted Giverny.
Work
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