Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Works of Art: Edmund Yaghjian

Woman's Portrait, 1940s, pencil on paper, 8 3/4 x 10 3/4 in.
$1,800
Untitled, 1945, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 in., $4,500

Tugboats, 1930s, pencil on paper, 7 x 8 1/2 in., $800

Untitled, 1960s,
oil on canvas mounted on board,
20 x 16 in.$5,000

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Biography: Edmund Yaghjian

Tugboats, 1930s
Pencil on paper
7 x 8 1/2 in
$800

Edmund Yaghjian (1905 – 1997)

Armenian native and long-time Columbia, S.C., resident Edmund Yaghjian is one of the important art figures in South Carolina since World War II. During 27 years at the University of South Carolina art department, which he chaired for two decades, Yaghjian taught many of the state’s prominent artists. He was instrumental in establishing the Columbia Museum of Art and several local and statewide arts organizations. Before coming to Columbia in 1945, Yaghjian had already established himself as an up-and-coming artist on the New York scene with a growing national reputation. Among the institutions that showed or have his work are the Art Students League, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Academy of Design, Kraushaar Gallery, the Whitney Museum, all in New York, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C, the Rhode Island School of Design, the High Museum in Atlanta and the Birmingham (Ala.) Museum of Art. In 2007, the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia organized a Yaghjian retrospective that also traveled to ACA Galleries in New York City.