Artsrunian, Eduard Simonovich

Eduard Simonovich Artsrunian was a Soviet and Armenian painter and graphic artist. He studied in Leninakan at the Art School named after Sergei Merkurov. In 1944 Artsrunian entered the Art School named after Panos Terlemezian in Yerevan. From 1947 to 1951 he studied at the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) Academy of Arts of the USSR at the Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute of Art. In 1957 Artsrunian participated in the All-Union Art Exhibition in Moscow. throughout his career the artist participated in numerous Republican, All-Union, and international art exhibitions and competitions.

Artsrunian was well regarded for his social and political posters designed in a bright, stylish way. Often times the themes of his posters dealt with youth, pioneering, school and sports in addition to agricultural work. Together with the graphic artist Vladimir Vasil'evich Sachkov, Artsrunian co-designed a number of titles including: “On Guard for Peace and Labor!” (1967); “On the Labor Leninist Watch!” (1968); “Pioneer Detachments!” (1969); “Our work is for you, Motherland!” (1973), and others. Artsrunian’s posters were published by Sovetskii Khudoznik (Soviet Artist), Izogiz (State Publishing House of Fine Arts), and by Plakat (All-Union Poster).

Since 1976 the artist lived and worked in Yerevan where he taught at the Terlemezian Art College and the Yerevan Art Institute (a.k.a., Academy of Arts). As a designer of posters spanning the 1950s to the 1980s, some of Artsrunian’s earliest titles were: "Forever shine over our republic, peace, labor, May!" (1957); “We’re gathering a million tons of scrap metal!”; “Miners’ labor is honored by the people!” (both 1961); "Communism will win!" (1961, together with Volikov and Dementiev); “Peace is the will of the peoples!”, “Youth, to the construction sites of communism!”, “Joyful work in the name of communism! (all 1962); “Africa is building - Africa will win!”, “All-Union Day of the Railway Worker”, “Long live Comrade Fidel Castro!”, “Day of the Navy of the USSR”, “Here we learn to work and help the collective farm!” (all 1963), and so on. Eduard Simonovich Artsrunian was a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR and he was bestowed the titles of Honored Artist of the Armenian SSR (1984) and People's Artist of the Armenian SSR (1989).