In the mid-Nineties Armenian art historian Levon Chooksazian
was asked by a German publishing house to write short biographies of Armenian
artists of the 20th century for inclusion in a world lexicon of
artists. Because I am an artist of Armenian descent, he contacted me to learn
about my history and those of other Armenian/American artists whom I knew. One
artist that he had already heard about was my great uncle Marvin Julian. Since he was someone, whose story was part of
family lore, I was able to fill in lots of details about his life. Levon always
enjoyed coming to Boston from Armenia to lecture, and, moreover, as a lover of the Armenian language,
to hear the dialect of Western Armenian still spoken by the nonagenarians, who
came from Western Anatolia around the beginning of the last century. With the
passing of that generation and the extirpation of their ancestors in the towns
of central Turkey such as Harput, this dialect is now disappearing. Such is the
lot of the Armenians. Their moments of political coherence are short lived. Levon always goes about his work with a sense of urgency to document the actors
and players in Armenian culture, while there is still an Armenia in which
Armenian culture can thrive.
If it were not for the persecution of Armenians in Turkey,
Marvin Julian, born Chooljian,(alternate spellings from his early years in
America are Chooljean and Chovilijean) would not have come to this country. The
Ottoman overlord's pogroms on the Armenian minority, periodically, reminded them of their inferior social position and confiscated their money in a
rude sort of taxation. My grandmother, Marvin’s sister, said that during these
assaults the young boys were rolled up in oriental rugs to hide them from the
soldiers. When the dust settled on one
of these sporadic attacks, my grandmother, just a little girl, wandering the streets with her mother inquired why there were so many people sleeping in the street.
It is out of and from this turmoil that Marvin and his extended
family came to Boston. I have always marveled to what degree, originating from
the rural interior of Anatolia, he was able to sort out the cultural reality of
New England in short order, so as to eventually establish himself as an artist
of no mean repute in the city of Boston.
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| Photo taken in Turkey with Marvin seated at the lower left |
Piecing together his early years leaves much that is out of
focus. He enlisted in the American Army before World War 1, but never went to war,
remaining at Fort Devens outside of Boston. He survived the notorious influenza
epidemic in 1918, that killed more American soldiers than died on the Front. My
father remembers being so proud to see him in uniform in Boston, when the
American Army replaced the police, who went on strike in 1919. It was
probably prior to his service in the Army that he met
John Singer Sargent, who worked
on the Boston Public Library murals up until 1919. He would run errands for him
such as buying a newspaper and would receive art instruction in exchange. The
story was already part of his resume in the 1930’s article on him in a Boston newspaper.
By the early Twenties
he moved to Paris to study at the Academie Julian, a
haven for American artists, which functioned as an avant-garde alternative to
the L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts. It trained not only the French Modernist Matisse
but Americans of note such as Sargent, Henri and Prendergast. He made money as
a gravedigger in the American military cemeteries of the Great War, and
frequented Sunday salons organized by wealthy Boston matrons living
in Paris. His father who worked like many
Armenians in the Hood Rubber Plant in Watertown, Massachusetts, just outside of
Boston, helped him out financially, until some monetary setbacks made it
impossible to continue his support.Marvin was forced to return to Boston. The
story goes that in despair he threw all his art materials into the Seine.
His life in Paris was brought into focus several years ago,
when I went on a tour with my wife on the Left Bank of Paris to locate the
school, where she had studied before going to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. When we
found the school and entered the courtyard I noticed inscribed above a door: "Academie Julian". Was this once the location of this famous school that my great uncle
took his name from? The school was on
break, so that our presence in the school was noticed by the school’s director. We addressed our questions to him and learned
that indeed this had been the location of the famous Academy, before it became in the 1950's the preparatory
school for the Beaux-Arts that my wife attended. When I told him
of my uncle, he said that there would be a record of his attendance and that in
fact the vice-director of the school was writing a book about the history of
the Academy. The vice-director was in his office and spent sometime with us looking up Marvin’s
name. Indeed, his name was on the list of students and moreover, he had won an award for his
painting.
Back in Boston with Academy Julian credentials under his
belt, he became over a period of time a teacher in several art schools.We are in possession of a catalogue from The Exeter
School of Art that lists him as an instructor. Several
anecdotes that he related to me of his early years in Boston concerned his relationship with Arshile Gorky, who
lived in Watertown with his sister for several years on Dexter Ave, where
Marvin’s parents lived. Marvin, who was born in 1894, was ten years older than Arshile.
Marvin said that Gorky studied art under him at The New School of Design and
Illustration, which the Gorky Foundation lists as the school he attended and
eventually taught at. In a discussion with the director of the Gorky Foundation
I was told that they are going to research more thoroughly his life in Boston
and hopefully turn up class lists that would confirm his relation to Marvin.
Marvin described Gorky as a larger than life character, who would dazzle his fellow
classmates with his ability to draw perfect circles free hand. At that time, Arshile
painted in a tonal style similar to what was popular in Boston and a style that
Marvin never strayed from. Gorky moved on to New York and began his transformation
into a Modernist, absorbing Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and Miro. My uncle
attended Gorky’s first opening in New York City. He recalls being snubbed by
Gorky at the opening, who Marvin wrongly thought was embarrassed to show his old teacher what
must have appeared to Marvin, the student of Sargent, as crudely wrought images.
I have always contended that Gorky was embarrassed by his former teacher, who
appeared to him as a representative of the old guard.
In the end neither interpretation is accurate. The answer to this interaction between
Marvin and Gorky, only became clear to me upon seeing Cosima Spender’s
documentary on her grandfather:
”Without Gorky”. It depicts in the words of his
wife, still alive, and his two daughters, the oppressive shadow that this
inspired genius cast on their lives. It was not at all
flattering of the great Armenian Painter. One aspect of Gorky’s life was
spelled out emphatically in the film: he was very intent on maintaining the myth of being the son of Maxim Gorky. So much so, that his wife
only learned of his Armenian heritage toward the end of their life together from
a grocer in Sherman Ct.. Obviously, Marvin knew Gorky was Armenian and his
presence at the opening, risked blowing Gorky’s carefully constructed cover as
the son of Maxim Gorky. Hence the snub.
 |
Marvin to Gorky's left
from Herrera's book
(referred to as Felix Choolijian
in Mooradians' book) |
 |
Family photo of Marvin from 1925
(notice similar suit to what is
worn by Felix Chookjian) |
Gorky's resume at the Grand Central
Art School that I read on the Gorky Foundation website says that he studied at the Academie Julian under Jean-Paul Lauren.
The Gorky Foundation admits that this is totally fabricated by Gorky to plump
up his resume and in my opinion is taken from his teacher Marvin at the New
School of Design and Illustration. According to Gerard Vallin, who is writing a history of the school, Lauren was a teacher at the Academy Julian when
Marvin was there.
There is a good deal of circumstantial evidence to support
the relationship of Gorky and Julian. The most intriguing is a photo that is an
iconic part of the Gorky memorabilia, which appears in several biographies of
Gorky. It portrays the young Gorky in 1925 at The New School of Design and
Illustration in Boston, looking princely with a fur coat seated next to two
women (one identified as an instructor Ethel Cooke) on his right and an artist
to his left named Felix Chooligian in one biography(Mooradian) and Felix Chookjian in
another(Herrera). A recent search by my sister on Ancestry.com has uncovered a passport request from Marvin Chooljian to
study in France with a letter of support from the New School of Illustration
and Design's director Douglas Connah, which describes him as a student of said school. The date is
1920. He came back from Paris in 1922 and presumably started teaching there, where, as Marvin claimed, he had Gorky as a student. There is also a photo of
Marvin from 1925 that was in the possession of Marvin’s sister (my grandmother)
wearing what appears to be the same suit worn by Felix in the photo of Gorky. I
have shown numerous people the two photos side by side and no one has doubted
that Felix is Marvin. The difference in spelling of the last name does in no
way discount my theory that the Gorky photo is of Marvin as Armenian names
were transcribed phonetically and were subject to various spellings. The only
fly in the ointment is that the first name Felix is not one I have ever heard
attributed to Marvin and also in the Mooradian biography he is referred to as a
Vanetzi, i.e. born in the province of Van, Gorky’s birthplace, whereas my great
uncle was Harpetzi. The director of the Gorky Foundation Melissa
Kerr said that Karlen Mooradian, Gorky’s nephew, who labeled the photo, tended
in his writings to mythologize about Gorky’s Armenian roots and would have
found it supportive of the myth to have Felix be a fellow Vanetzi.
All that is left for me to confirm the connection to Gorky would be to
find evidence of Marvin's role as a teacher at the New School.
 |
| Alexander Woollcott |
In the thirties he taught magazine illustration at the
Exeter School of Art in Boston’s Back Bay. Among several examples of magazine covers he did for Microphone, a journal of radio topics, there is well- known critic Alexander Woollcott.
 |
| "Art Week in Boston" in a Boston Newspaper |
Marvin was already in his sixties, when I was old enough to
remember his presence at family get-togethers. He lived a bohemian life in a
sparsely decorated studio at 110 Newbury St in Boston’s Back Bay with his
mother. He was seemingly able to subsist on a diet of coffee and cigarettes. He
often said that if he were ever to be burglarized, the robbers shocked at his
poverty, might be compelled to leave something for him. I recall that he had no
refrigerator and kept the milk for his coffee out on the balcony in Winter. On
occasion our family would visit him and his mother on a Sunday bringing with us
a meal of chicken and pilaf. I recall his window shades were attached to the
bottom of his windows and lifted up from there to keep the north light always
lighting from above. Over the years, I learned bits and pieces of about his
life in Boston and Paris, but there is much he kept to himself. I asked him
once about the “Bal des QuatZ-Arts” in Paris that was a notorious Saturnalia,
where participants typically dressed up or rather undressed as classical Greek
sculptures. He admitted attending but was unwilling to talk about the details and said: ”Mum’s
the word.” He displayed the same diffidence in the Boston newspaper article(above) about the details of his relation to Sargent.
 |
| Portrait of Father with Ashcan school influence |
Stylistically his best portraits showed the influence of the
Ashcan school, especially when he was free from having to flatter the subject, as
in his portraits of his parents. On Askart, a site that lists artist's auction history, he is noted for “floral still lives”. Indeed, our immediate family
is in possession of many of them. To my eye it is in these works that the aesthetic
of Marvin shines. Each bloom is delicately and never generically observed. There
is a feeling of tenderness for each bloom, which must be cherished and not harmed.
Although his work may be lacking in any
dialogue with the dozens of “isms” that ruled the 20thc and remained within the
language of chiaroscuro, which he learned from his idol Sargent, there is always a sensitivity to presence. It just sings out the fragility
and nuance of the moment, the exact instant of apperception.
 |
| Flowers by Marvin for which he is known on "Askart" |
My father told me, which was typical of his pessimistic reminders
of the fickle nature of the economy , that the Exeter School of Art closed down during
the Depression. The next evidence of Marvin’s presence in Boston comes in the
late 30’s, when he was commissioned through the Federal Arts Project to do a
portrait of an admiral for the Naval War College. From then on, he became well
known as a portraitist in the Boston artistic community. There is an article
about a portrait that he did the early Sixties of the wife of then Governor of
Massachusetts, Foster Furcolo.Within the family he was, as it were, the court
painter, doing pastels of his nieces and nephews.
 |
| Marvin in front of commission of Massachusetts Governor's wife Kate Furcolo |
He spent his later years alone in his apartment on Newbury
St. His second home was the Boston Public Library, where he read copiously in
classical literature. I once noticed him reading Rousseau’s “Confessions”. He
must have been somewhat bewildered by the evolution of the art scene in Boston,
which in the Fifties was very much defined by the Boston Expressionists. They complained
that the explosion of Abstract Art in New York, which they felt was too French
and immoral, had sidelined them. I can imagine that Marvin and his devotion to
the art of the 19thc felt even more sidelined. Interestingly enough, my
teaching career in Boston began two years after his death in 1988 at an art
college just up the street from where he taught, as though in some strange notion of karma I had to fill in for his absence from the Boston art world. I had moved to France as he did and spent a commensurate amount
of time there. When I came back in the late 70's and showed the work I had done there at the Bromfield Gallery he came to the opening and quietly advised gallery goers what to purchase. The notion of presence has shaped Western
Art and Philosophy since the time of the Greeks, and for several centuries from the Renaissance on this notion of beauty, grounded in the disinterested gaze, reined supreme. It clearly
was the underlying principle of all of Marvin’s thinking about painting.
Recently, I came across an inquiry about Marvin on “Askart”
by someone one who knew him in the late 70’, early 80’s. Marvin would have been
in his mid 80’s at the time. I replied to the email, which was already sitting on
the site four years and got this reply, which sums up better than I could the
last years of an independent artist who always followed his muse.
 |
Mother Sarah who lived with him the later years .
Painting recalled by Tomas Jonsson |
Hello,
I received,
with pleasure, your email regarding Marvin Julian. How did you come by my name?
I am surprised, since it was so many years ago that I had met Mr. Julian (as we
all referred to him). I was his neighbor in an apartment on Newbury
Street, back in the late 1970's/early 1980's. I used to take care of him; visit
with him, fetch groceries sometimes, make sure he was okay in the cold. At
the time I believed he was one step away from being homeless, and it broke
my heart. As you say, he was extremely private and would not talk about
much, except his painting. I can still picture his apartment, and smell it…..it
had the strong smell of paint and linseed oil. It was like stepping in to
another world, another era. His apartment was always cold in the winter, too cold for an
old man with failing eyesight. He often wore a sort of blanket/shawl over his
shoulders. *I made him hot drinks, kept him company.
One
day he said he would paint me, and I was thrilled and bewildered. I didn't know
what to expect. But I knew it was important to him, as his sight failed, and he
needed to paint. And, I think, it was his way of saying 'thank you' to me,
although he didn't need to, as far as I was concerned. To me he was a
great man, mysterious, mercurial, but clearly brilliant. In his almost
empty apartment (he insisted, one day,
that I should take the area rug, something someone must have given
him) he had two amazing portraits on the otherwise empty
and dirty walls. One, which I was awestruck by, was his mother; dark and
serious and very formal (I'm sure you know it). So, I sat for him, and very
quickly he had a painting which I think captured me so well. I look at it now
and find it funny and glorious, as who would not! I'm a young man sitting
there, trying to look formal and serious myself, long 1970ish hair, wearing a
formal tie and sport coat. I thought I should look the part for Mr. Julian.
I
moved house after two years there, and lost touch with Mr. Julian. Although I
think he enjoyed my company, he was closed tight, didn't really know how to
relate very well, and seemed, so sadly, to be alone and lost in the world
and, frankly, waiting out his remaining time. I have always remembered
him, always think kindly of him, always will.
Mr.
Julian told me that the National Portrait Gallery in D.C. has some of his
paintings, do you know if that is the case? I would so love to see more of
his work. John Singer Sergeant(sic) has always been my favorite
painter, and I see the strong influence in Mr. Julian's work. I've always felt
he should be celebrated more for his incredible work, do you know where his
paintings are located, museums etc.?
Thank
you so much for your email, and I wish you well,
Tomas
C. Jonsson
*When I shared this letter with a cousin whose mother was very close to Marvin, they were somewhat taken aback by the grim image of Marvin's last days portrayed by Mr Jonsson. They periodically visited him to clean his apartment and replace items which were old and frayed with newer ones. My aunt suggested that the rug he gave to Mr Jonsson was one that she had given him. Marvin enjoyed the concern of an extended family,who were equally enthralled by this most enigmatic of artists,but proudly portrayed himself as an independent artist to Mr. Jonsson.
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