Martiros Sarian House Museum

The Armenian painter Martiros Sarian (1880-1972) studied at the Moscow School of Arts, where he drew inspiration from Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) and Henri Matisse (1869-1954), and exhibited with the Symbolist Blue Rose group, along with Pavel Kuznetsov (1878-1968). After travelling in Turkey, Egypt and Iran, and spending two years living in Paris, he returned to Armenia in 1929. Sarian then lived and worked in this purpose-built studio in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, for some forty years, from 1932 until his death. Soon after settling, he began receiving visits from tourists and art pilgrims who wanted to see him at work, and, as a result, in 1967 the adjoining museum was added to the site by the Armenian government, to designs by Mark Gregorian.

Today, this three-storey building displays nearly 250 items, including paintings from across Sarian's career. Many of these celebrate Armenia, and the Armenian landscape, a source of inspiration to the artist from his first visit there in 1901. Alongside paintings, the collection also includes thousands of drawings and watercolours, and the museum hosts a rolling programme of temporary exhibitions. Adjoining the museum, the studio is preserved and displayed as Sarian left it, with his brushes and working clothes still on the table.