Obituary: Alexander Skunder Boghossian
Ethiopian artist and pioneer of modern African art Alexander Skunder Boghossian passed away in his Washington, DC apartment on Sunday, May 4. He was aged 66.
Writing about Boghossian in the book Seven Stories: About Modern Art in Africa, Salah Hassan observed of the movement Boghossian was such an integral part of: "Unlike their predecessors within the modernist experience, they did not engage in art as a mere academic exercise, nor did they uncritically accept what they had learned of the western tradition. They were pioneers, who developed a new visual vocabulary of iconography, symbolism and technique which continues to define the modern art movements in their countries."
Born in Addis Ababa in 1937, Boghossian was awarded an "imperial scholarship" when he was 17 to study at London's St. Martin's School of Art. He extended his stay another nine years during which he moved to Paris, becoming a student and teacher at that city's Acad�mie de la Grande Chaumi�re and at the Ecole Superieure des Beaux Arts. In 1963 he was the first Ethiopian painter whose work was purchased by the Musee d'Art Moderne in Paris. Later, in 1965, Boghossian was the first contemporary African artist to have work purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Influenced by figures as diverse as Frantz Fanon, Aime Cesaire, Cheikh Anta Diop and Paul Klee, a South African also prefigures in Boghossian's story. The great South African exile, artist Gerard Sokoto, introduced him to the Cuban surrealist painter, Wilfredo Lam.
Boghossian returned to Ethiopia in 1966 and stayed until 1969 when he was invited to become artist in residence at Atlanta University, as well as resident instructor in sculpting, painting and African design at the Atlanta Center for Black Art. Widely praised for his energetic abstractions of tradition and use of vivid colour, Boghossian is cited as having established the standard for modern art in Ethiopia.
Salah Hassan summarises Boghossian's influence as follows: "He revolutionised and set new standards for the Ethiopian modern art movement."
