In the early 1960's Melkonian began focusing more specifically towards abstraction in his work, and became a leading figure in the Iranian art scene, due to his successes at home and internationally. In 1961, Melkonian was part of the exhibition hosted at Saderat Bank in Tehran (alongside, Marcos Grigorian, Bijan Saffari, Sohrab Sepehri, Manucher Sheybani and Parviz Tanavoli) which drew the support and attention of Iranian arts patron Abby Grey.