Шахрикян Симон

Shahrikian Simon

Шахрикян Симон

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Simon Shahrikian

  Considered the best portraitist among the Armeno-Egyptian artists and one of the best portraitists in modern Egypt, Simon Shahrikian was born in 1911 in Cairo, Egypt.  From early childhood, his father encouraged him to draw by color-pencils.  He has taken private lessons in art from Yervant Demirdjian.  Saroukhan was his art teacher in Kalousdian School.  Saroukhan encouraged him in the field of caricature, which left its "expressionistic" influence in the shaping of his style.  In 1931, and for about a decade, he taught art at Noubarian School.  From 1935-1939 he seriously studied art in the private academy of the Yugoslav artist Yaro Hibbert in Cairo.  After his father's death in 1923, Shahrikian was left as the only son among four sisters.  This prevented him from devoting himself completely to art.  He had to obtain another profession to support the family financially.  From 1938 he started working as an architectural draughtsman.  In 1957 Shahrikian started devoting himself more and more to his art and participated in the exhibitions of "Salon du Caire" in 1959, 1965-1972, 1977-1980.  He has held a private exhibition in Cairo, in 1970, and one in Alexandria in 1982.  Bu temperament and aesthetical outlook, he was a realist.  Simon Shahrikian died in Cairo in 1989.