- Source: Lusik Aguletsi
Lusik Aguletsi (Armenian: Լուսիկ Ագուլեցի); born Lusik Zhorzhiki Harutyunyan; was a Nakhichevan-born Armenian painter, ethnographer, and Honored Cultural Worker of Armenia.
Aguletsi was famous for being the last Armenian to regularly wear her traditional Armenian dress in Yerevan.
Biography
Lusik Aguletsi was born on May 31, 1946, in the village of Verin Agulis in Nakhichevan, to the Harutyunyan family; the last Armenians living in Agulis after the 1919 Agulis massacre committed by the Azerbaijanis. Her experience in Agulis was the inspiration for the character “Lusik” in the novel Stone Dreams by Azerbaijani author Akram Aylisli. In 1953, Aguletsi’s family moved to Yerevan. In 1963-1967, she studied at the Panos Terlemezyan Art College of Yerevan. During her studies, she was awarded a special prize by the "Avangard" newspaper. She was a member of the Artists' Union of Armenia from 1974.
Lusik Aguletsi's paintings are in museums and private collections abroad. In addition to painting, Aguletsi was an active ethnographer. She collected weapons, costumes, decorations, and ancient jars. Some of them were brought from her native Agulis and the rest from different corners of Western and Eastern Armenia.
Lusik Aguletsi died on July 13, 2018, at the age of 72.
Exhibitions
From 1968, Aguletsi participated in various republican exhibitions in Armenia and abroad.
= Solo exhibitions
=1996 National Gallery of Armenia
1997 Stepanakert
1997 "Mkrtchyan" exhibition hall
1999 Greece, Thessaloniki
= Group exhibitions
=1977 Paris
1977 USA
1978 Germany
1981 Iraq
1983 Los Angeles, Detroit, Toronto, Montreal
1985 Moscow
1986 Japan
1987 Greece
1989 "Armenian Artists to the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund", National Gallery of Armenia
1994 Belgium, Normandy, France
1995, 1997 Symposium in Artsakh
1998 "Contemporary Art on the Threshold of the 21st Century"
2003 Minsk, exhibition dedicated to the Independence Day of Armenia
2003 Exhibition dedicated to the "Armenia-Diaspora" conference
Awards and prizes
1967 Award at the Transcaucasian Exhibition
1968 The first prize of the exhibition of women artists
1975 Prize of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Moscow All-Union Exhibition
Diploma of the RA Ministry of Culture
Diploma of Yerjan Municipality
2003 Award for preserving universal values by the Mesrop Mashtots Cultural Center
2010 Movses Khorenatsi medal
2011 Lusik Aguletsi's book "Relics of the Past" won the main prize at the 4th Republican Book Art Awards, and also won the first prize in the "Book of Art" category of the CIS International Book Awards.
2014 Honored Cultural Worker of Armenia
2014 Gold medal of the mayor of Yerevan
Lusik Aguletsi House-Museum
The house on 79 Muratsan Street in Yerevan, where Lusik Aguletsi lived and worked for about 45 years, was turned into a house-museum on the initiative of family members. In the museum, folk concerts, painting, dance and master classes are organized. Adjacent to the museum is the Aguletsi Art Cafe, which features traditional Armenian cuisine with Agulis dishes.
Quotes
Painting helped me to expand in different branches of culture, to see, perceive and appreciate the values created by our people, so I study folk culture, especially national holidays, rituals, costumes
Work
Lusik Aguletsi "Relics of the Past", Yerevan, 2010.
Lusik Aguletsi "Yuri Samvelyan", Yerevan, 2012.
Literature
Lusik Aguletsi-Samvelyan, Yerevan, 2004, 90 pages.
Nazik Armenakyan, Armenian festive culture according to the works of painter Lusik Aguletsi, Yerevan, 2015, 408 pages.
References
External links
Lusik Aguletsi interview about Akram Aylisli (hetq.am)
