SwissArtGallery · Documented identity
Léon Tutundjian’s career is marked by clear shifts in visual language: after figurative, Cubist and collage-based explorations, he turns to geometric and organic abstraction, before moving to Surrealist figuration in 1932 and returning to abstraction from 1959 onwards. His ‘reliefs’, made mainly in 1928, give concrete form to his abstract explorations: these three-dimensional wall sculptures combine a grey or black wooden base with iron elements, rods, tubes and cylinders. The vocabulary of these works is based on simple forms and materials combined on a wall support.
He begins studying painting and ceramics at the École des Beaux-Arts d’Istanbul at the age of 14. At 17, fleeing the Armenian genocide, he is taken in at the Armenian monastery of San Lazzaro in Venice, where he completes his training. He arrives in Paris in 1924 and finds his first job as a ceramicist there. Shortly after his arrival, he meets Ervand Kotchar, and then David Kakabadzé through Kotchar. In 1929, one source presents him as one of the founders of the Art Concret group, alongside Otto Gustav Carlsund, Theo van Doesburg and Jean Hélion. He later joins Abstraction-Création, which he leaves in 1932 to turn towards Surrealist figuration. During the Second World War, although stateless, he is mobilised and soon wounded, according to his biography. On his return, he devotes himself mainly to ceramics until the end of the war in order to provide for his family. From 1959, he turns away from Surrealism and resumes his abstract exploration. Until his death in 1968, he makes drawings, often ‘pastellised’, canvases and a few reliefs.
In October 1959, he takes part in the exhibition ‘Le pétrole vu par 100 peintres’ at the Musée Galliera in Paris, with the work Méditation sur le pétrole. His work is the subject of Gladys Fabre’s monograph Tutundjian, published by Éditions du Regard in 1994.
This profile brings together identity references for Léon Arthur Tutundjian and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.
Germann · Kornfeld · Artcurial Beurret Bailly Widmer
References include catalogue entries and available results; they do not all represent completed sales. Attributed works and special lots are excluded from the priced results.
Ink and coloured chalk on paper
Composition abstraite, 1927
Tusche und Farbkreide auf Papier
Catalogue period : 2018-06-20
Published result : 3403 CHF
Fees not specified in the available data
Estimate : CHF 500–700
View the lot at the auction house ↗Oil on canvas
Sans Titre
Öl auf Leinwand
Catalogue period : 2018-06-15
Published result : 130000 CHF
Hammer price, excluding fees
Estimate : CHF 50000
View the lot at the auction house ↗
Pencil drawing
Sans titre, 1965
Bleistift-Zeichnung.
Date to be documented
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
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Oil on canvas
Composition surréaliste, 1929
Öl auf Leinwand.
Date to be documented
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
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Aquarell und Tusche.
Date to be documented
Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed
View the lot at the auction house ↗SwissArtGallery documentary note based on the cited sources. Titles, media and qualifications are provided in the profile language; the original catalogue wording remains available in each record.
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