The Millon auction house is honored to present the exceptional work, The Visit, painted at the end of the 1970s by the Lebanese master Paul Guiragossian. The Visit reveals the strong expressionist imagery unique to the artist as well as his strength to create a masterpiece from a palette of monotonous, but warm tones that confirms his aesthetic exploration.


Born in Jerusalem in 1926 to survivors of the Armenian genocide, Paul Guiragossian was passionate about painting at a very young age, which became his refuge from the cruelty of the world around him. Her family was poor and the artist spent her early childhood in the care of the Order of the Sisters of Charity of Saint-Paul de Vence, away from her mother who worked to provide an education for her brothers. This separation from an early age led her to her continuous exploration around the theme of motherhood. He depicted his personal struggles to distance himself from her and yearn for that enveloping motherly love. His faceless figures delineated by thick brushstrokes evoke the human condition. Depicted statically or in motion,
Much of his work is concerned with the essence of the human form. Between abstraction and figuration, the artist explores the fundamentals of humanity; what does it mean to be a human? Guiragossian's wife and children form a core of his portrait with numerous self-portraits and anonymous figures. The tender relationship between mother and child is also a frequent theme in her work. Guiragossian's distinctive style consists of long vertical brushstrokes to depict the bodies of his figures, creating abstract, elongated forms that echo Byzantine icons. Exile, separation, deportation, but also reunions and family are also often present in his work.


"Facts of existence are the main source of my artistic experience. Art for me starts from the "real". At the beginning, an artist paints his surroundings, and like a child, the artist would ask many questions, a true devoted artist never stops questioning. The reality of everything is a question in itself. An artist, who has no answer, stops at limited borders, he will not move forward, does not evolve. I was born in a very modest place, therefore, I paint children , mothers, families, I paint misery, birth, death, and I paint the noise. I paint the tight-knitted groups that are lost, scarred, expelled, not knowing where is their next destination, I paint the neighborhoods which witnessed war, and hunger. Fear, genocide, siege, illness and death, from all of these ingredients I explode and I paint"