Abstract Geometric Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Larry Zox (1937-2006) was a central figure in the evolution of 20th century abstraction in America. Raised in Des Moines, Iowa, Zox studied at the University of Oklahoma and went o...

Abstract geometric painting with a cool toned palette of green, blue, and grey with accents of black and white against a sea foam green colored acrylic wash background "Blue and Grey Green Plan" made by Hudson Valley artists, Donise English, in 2022 Graphite, colored pencil, and acrylic painting on vellum 24 x 18 inches unframed, 31 x 25 x 1.5 with an 8-ply white mat, non-glare plexi, and simple black moulding Signed, verso Excellent condition and ready to hang This abstract geometric painting on vellum was made by Hudson Valley based artist, Donise English, in 2022. The composition begins with a blue green toned background of acrylic wash. A grid of box-like patterns in sky blue, green, grey, and black with white line work are stacked to create an irregular shape or an "imagined city grid", says the artist. The painting on vellum is complemented by a simple black frame with an 8-ply white mat, non-glare plexi, and wire backing. It's in excellent condition and ready to hang. About the artist: Donise English emphasizes lines, grids, and fields of subtle color to evoke imagined places and invented structures. While precise lines and straight angles are often associated with themes in architecture and urban planning designs, English conveys a geometric motif guided by intuition rather than a ruler. Variations on grids retain flaws and unmistakable traces of the artists’ hand; her style of draftsmanship shies away from intellectualism and instead makes her compositions feel very personal. A central checkerboard formation floats over a ground of pastel color or washes of grey or cream. Each design is intensely intricate, incorporating gouache, acrylic, pen, graphite, ink and colored pencil. The artist recently retired from her decades career teaching at Marist College and is now devoted full time to her art making. Artist Statement: My work is about the way visual diagrams present information that describes how something is made or the way it is. I am interested in drawing and collaging multiple layers of information that refer abstractly to maps, architectural drawings and blueprints or patterns and structures found in such things as roller coasters, power lines and fences. I use gouache and collaged paper in a series of layers that are a visual and ideological response to the previous layer to define my pictorial space. For each piece I create a set of rules to follow about the use of a limited palette, a grid format, opacity of paper and whether a piece may include curving lines or maintain a rectilinear structure. Artist CV: EDUCATION Master of Fine Arts in Painting Bard College 1986 Bachelor of Science in Art History State University College at New Paltz 1977 Additional Study: New York Studio School (Drawing Marathons) Columbia University, School of Architecture Women’s Studio Workshop TEACHING Professor of Studio Art, Department of Art and Art History, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY Coordinator, Interior Design Program, Florence, Italy campus 1992-present AWARDS NYFA Fellowship in Painting 2018 Invitational Award for Outstanding Contemporary Talent, University of Bridgeport, CT 2000 Purchase Prize, “11th National Juried Exhibition” College of Notre Dame of Maryland, Baltimore 1999 First Prize, “Women in the Visual Arts ‘95” Erector Square Gallery, New Haven, CT 1995 Joseph A. Cain Memorial Purchase Award for Sculpture Del Mar College, Corpus Christi, TX 1994 Honorable Mention, “National Juried Exhibition” University of Bridgeport, CT 1993 Individual Artists Fellowship in Sculpture Dutchess Arts Fund 1992/93 Tallix, Morris, Singer Internship in Sculpture Tallix Foundry, Beacon, NY 1990/91 MEMBERSHIP Royal British Society of Sculptors SELECTED JURIED/INVITATIONAL EXHIBITIONS 2020 “edu: Art Faculty of the Hudson Valley”, Hudson Valley MOCA, Peekskill, NY 2019 “Contemporary Abstraction”, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY “Mixed Media”, SITE Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2018 “JuxtaPositions”, The Painting Center, New York, NY “Peculiar Rarities”, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY 2017 “Interlock: Color and Contrast in Abstraction”, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY “Donise English: Encaustics”, Catskill Art Society, Livingston Manor, NY 2016 “Let’s Stay in Touch”, Howard County Center for the Arts, Ellicott City, MD “Under, Over, After Over”, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY 2015 “Off the Grid”, Arts & Culture Program, Albany International Airport, Albany, NY “Gridspace”, KMOCA, Kingston, NY “Abstraction”, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY “Assuming Identity”, NY Institute of Technology, New York, NY 2013 “Modern Artists”, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY “Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region”, The Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, NY Stone Canoe/Community Folk Art Center, Syracuse, NY 2012 New York Institute of Technology, New York, NY “Contemporary Painters (Who Just Happen To Be Women)”, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY “Strange Glue: Collage at 100”, Cambridge School, Weston, MA “Dear Mother Nature”, Dorsky Museum, SUNY New Paltz, NY “Fresher Paint”, Rockland Center for the Arts, Nyack, NY Courthouse Gallery, Lake George Arts Project, Lake George, NY 2011 “Process+Content: Donise English”, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY “Donise English-Paintings”,Orange County Community College, Newburgh, NY “Gender Matters/Matters of Gender”, Freedman Gallery, Albright College, Reading, PA 2010 Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY “Encaustics: Wax and Image”, Westchester Community College, White Plains, NY “Dots, Lines and Figures”, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY “Spring Awakening”, NY Institute of Technology, New York, NY “Clay City Dreams”, NY Institute of Technology, New York, NY “Texture,Pattern, Fragment”, Krause Gallery, Moses Brown School, Providence, RI 2009 “Collage”, NY Institute of Technology, New York, NY “Working in Wax”, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA “Encaustic 2009”, College of New Rochelle, NY “Three Artists”, Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY “Convergence: The Human Experience”,Howard County Center for the Arts, MD 2008 “Suckers and Biters: Love, Lollipops, and Exquisite Corpse” Chashama Gallery, New York, NY Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson NY 2007 “Patterns and Light”, Blue Hill Gallery, Blue Hill, ME “Suckers and Biters”, AG Gallery, Brooklyn, NY 2006 “100 Artists, 100 Watercolors”, Jeannie Freilich Fine Art, New York, NY “On/Of Paper”,Kirkland Art Center, Clinton, NY “The Love Show”, Manchester Community College, Manchester, CT 2005 The Soap Factory, Minneapolis, MN “Small Tales”, Valdosta State University, Georgia National Juried Exhibition,Art Institute and Gallery Salisbury, MD, Juror: Stephen Haller “Greed, Envy, Jealousy, Fear”, TSL Warehouse, Hudson, NY 2004 “Women in the Middle: Borders, Barriers, Intersections” University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee “Girl Art Now”,Hera Gallery, Wakefield, RI 3 Person Exhibition, Monterey Peninsula College, Monterey, CA “The Feminine Eye”, Bradley University, Peoria, IL “Women Painting Women”, McNeese State University, Lake Charles, LA “Thought Patterns”, Kent Place Gallery, Summit, NJ “Surface, Matter and Artifice”, Dutchess Community College Art Gallery Poughkeepsie, NY 2003 “Beefcake/Cheesecake”,Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana, CA,Juror: Jamie Wilson, Curator Halpert Bienniel, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC Juror: Jeff Fleming, Senior Curator, Des Moines Art Center “The Great White Oak”, Garrison Art Center, Garrison, NY Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY 2002 “Cat Calls”, Red Clay Arts, Brooklyn “Hudson Valley Regional”, SUNY New Paltz Juror: Sydney Jenkins, Director, Ramapo College Art Galleries 2001 One-Person Exhibition, Davis and Hall Gallery, Hudson, NY “Beyond the Surface”, Womanmade Gallery, Chicago One-Person Exhibition, Garrison Art Center, Garrison, NY 2000 “Vision 2000...

KENNETH NOLAND Untitled, for Trustees of the Honolulu Museum of Art, 1984 Mixed Media collage with silver and colored foil on board. Signed on verso (back) with personal inscription. "for Twig and Laila" (Trustees of the Honolulu Museum of Art), Deaccessioned from the Honolulu Museum of Art Collection Inscription done in black marker and reads: "A Little Exercise For Twig and Laila With Thanks For A Wonderful 3 Days At ' Cedar House' On The 'Big Island'... 1 Sept 1984 Honolulu Hawaii." Frame included Measurements Framed: 12.5" x 12.5" x .3" Artwork: 8.75" x 8.75" This reflective Chevron collage was de-accessioned by the Honolulu Museum of Art. In 2018, it was exhibited in the show "On Black Mountain: The Bauhaus Legacy in America", April 5, 2019-April 27, 2019 at the Sager Braudis Gallery in Columbia, Missouri, and is reproduced in the exhibition catalogue. Unique signed and dedicated mixed media collage with silver and colored foil on board by the important Color Field painter Kenneth Noland. It's quite a dazzling work, combining color field, geometric abstraction with Op Art, as the work changes appearance and color with the reflected and refracted light. - sometimes appearing light; sometimes darker. See the photos -- there's a light one and a darker one - and they both depict the same work. What's so impressive is that this work literally changes color depending on how the light reflects against it. The artist wrote a personal and heartfelt inscription on the verso to "Twig and Laila". (Twig (sic), which the artist deliberately misspells, is Thurston Twigg Smith, former publisher of The Honolulu Advertiser, who was married to New York philanthropist Laila Twigg Smith. Laila had lived in Hawaii since 1970, where she and her husband had put together a substantial collection of contemporary art. Unfortunately, the two divorced in 1996 and soon after she returned to New York. Two years later, in 1998, Laila died of liver failure at the young age of only 53. Laila was a major philanthropist and art collector who moved from Manhattan to Hawaii. She was a board member of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York and a major donor the Honolulu Museum in Hawaii. Laila donated the present Ken Noland...

Jay Rosenblum Polarity #9, 1981 Acrylic on Paper painting 6 × 9 1/2 inches Pencil signed and titled on the front Unique work Unframed ]This gem of a work is an acrylic painting on p...

Polly Apfelbaum Color Circle and Star, 2004 Fabric Marker and Fabric Dye on Velvet Cotton Signed and dated in ink by the artist on the front with artist's inkstamp. Frame Included Si...

This artwork titled "Sunbutton" 1978 is an ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper by renown French artist Sacha Kolin, 1911-1981. It is hand signed and dated at the lower right corner ...

This artwork titled "Snake Poisenous to an Orange" 1978 is an ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper by renown French artist Sacha Kolin, 1911-1981. It is hand signed and dated at the ...

This artwork titled "Carneval Lights" 1978 is an ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper by renown French artist Sacha Kolin, 1911-1981. It is hand signed and dated at the lower right c...

This artwork titled "Fairytale" 1978 is a watercolor on Fabriano paper by renown French artist Sacha Kolin, 1911-1981. It is hand signed and dated at the lower right corner in pencil...

Abstract Composition British School, monogrammed/ dated lower corner gouache painting on paper laid over card, unframed actual painting: 22 x 15.5 inches Superb - bold - and very co...

Larry Zox (1937-2006) was a central figure in the evolution of 20th century abstraction in America. Raised in Des Moines, Iowa, Zox studied at the University of Oklahoma and went o...

Sara Eichner wants to create a space where point of view can not be fixed. Optical games stand in for the struggle to comprehend the complexities of seeing. Using simple drawing tool...

Linda Turner, raised both in NYC and Northern Virginia, resides in Brooklyn, NY. She achieved a BFA in Surface Design/Textile Design from the Fashion Inst...

Jacques Soisson, French (1928 - 2012) - Rube Goldberg, Year: 1977, Medium: Gouache on Arches, signed and dated in ink lower right, Image Size: 27.5 x 18.5 inches, Size: 30 x 22 i...

Mernet Larsen Untitled, 1988 Signed and dated lower right Oil and collage on paper Image 17 3/4 x 18 3/4 inches Sheet 19 x 24 inches For more than sixty years, Mernet Larsen has been making paintings that tell stories, showing sharp-edged, mysterious characters in a strange world full of tension and clever humor. She uses different ways to show space that sometimes don't match up. By mixing different perspectives, like reversed and traditional views, she turns everyday situations into a dizzying version of reality that feels familiar yet strange. Her influences come from many places, including geometric shapes from Russian Constructivism, Japanese Bunraku...

Artist: Kenneth Noland, American (1924 - 2010) Title: Stripes Year: circa 1965 Medium: Watercolor Size: 4.5 in. x 6.75 in. (11.43 cm x 17.15 cm) Frame Size: 11.5 x 13.5 inches

Shipping in a tube rolled. This drawing is a fresh imprint of the impulse of the liveliness of the present moment. It is done on white watercolor paper using ink and two pastels. Wh...

'Roofs of Ravello' by Margaret Wentworth, 1959. Mid-Century Abstract, Harvard Fogg Museum, San Francisco Art Association, Carmel, Art Institute of Chicago ------ Initialed lower rig...

Evolve * Develop * Learn From Past Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstraction / Abstra...

Original drawing by Rudolf Bauer, signed 'B' lower recto. Rudolf Bauer was born in 1889 into a comfortable, but not well-to-do, family on the border between Germany and Poland, and ...

Untitled This piece includes an artist hand-signed note attached to the back of the framed work.

This expressive artwork "Heart.Soul.Mind" underlines the importance of having an inner maturity based on harmony between heart, sould and mind. As an artist and as a woman in my ...

This artwork is a part of the COVID-19 Documentary art (2020). Paintings on high quality, acid-free, high-density paper 360g/m2. All COVID paintings a...

This artwork is a part of the COVID-19 Documentary art (2020). Paintings on high quality, acid-free, high-density paper 360g/m2. All COVID paintings a...

Black_X, 2016 pencil, white pastel on black cardboard 27.55 H x 19.68 W in. 70 H x 50 W cm Alina Aldea's drawings project all the possible forms which appear to rapidly disappear, w...

A large minimal abstract painting on paper by Yasmin Brandolini. Artist: Yasmin Brandolini d'Adda, South African/Italian (1929 - ) Title: 36A Year: 1986 Medium: Acrylic on Paper, Mo...

The Maid, 2020 collage on paper 15 3/4 H x 11 13/16 W in. 40 H x 30 W cm The artist’s collages describe a series of faces composed of different materials – cardboards, textiles, fur...

James Balla Untitled gouache painting, 1992 Mixed Media Oil on Linen Signed and dated on the front of the work; the verso of the frame bears the UFO (Albert Merola) gallery label. F...

Time (Measure & Passage Of) Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstraction / Abstract Art ...

An exquisite work of geometric abstraction by this celebrated artist Winston Roeth Untitled, ca. 1996 Pastel on handmade paper Hand signed on the front Frame included: Floated and fr...

Bold mid century modern abstracted pastel on paper still life of several terra cotta jugs and vessels distilled down to their most basic shapes and ar...

Empath * Communication * Translate * Sharing (One of the Arts) Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / G...

Sara Eichner wants to create a space where point of view cannot be fixed. Optical games stand in for her struggle to comprehend the complexities of seeing. Using simple drawing tools...

Charles Hinman Untitled Geometric Abstraction (Hand Signed), 1980 Pastel & Graphite painting on Paper Signed and dedicated to "Michael and Rene" in graphite by the artist on the fron...

James Siena "This is for Nadine", signed drawing, 2005 Original drawing done in black marker, bound in the title page of softcover PACE Gallery catalogue with stiff wraps hand signe...

Gouache, colored pencil, graphite, and pastel on paper Signed and dated in black ink, verso This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Born in Peekskill, New Yo...

Vision I by Cheryl R. Riley Metallic abstract geometric symbols, purple, yellow, gray, gold Gouache and metallic ink on 140# cold press watercolor paper Feminist Art and Contemporar...

Sara Eichner wants to create a space where point of view can not be fixed. Optical games stand in for the struggle to comprehend the complexities of seeing. Using simple drawing tool...

Abstract Composition British School, monogrammed/ dated lower corner gouache painting on paper laid over card, unframed actual painting: 22 x 15.5 inches Superb - bold - and very co...

Breathers (Flora * Fauna * Fungi * Biota) Gouache on 1957 Encyclopedia page Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstraction / Abstract Art / M...

Artist : Kory Twaddle Title : Blue Springs Semi Upper Level Materials : Colored pencil, marker, tempera, gouache, stickers, tape, glitter glue, pastel, oil pastel, acrylic, graphite...

Carnivore Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstraction / Abstract Art / Minimalism and C...

Drawing / Geometric Abstraction / Mythology and Religion / Bright and Vivid Colors / Black and White Enamel, ink, colored pencil and alcohol ink on paper....

Alex Diamond Title: "Untitled" (Geometric Abstraction) Year: 2018 Medium: Drawing; Ink on paper Size: 12 x 8.5 inches Signed and dated (stamped) by the artist These pieces, these be...

Geometric and serene in its complexity - abstract contemporary painting created with impeccable attention to detail by deconstructing original watercolors—based largely on landscape,...

Vibration * Frequency * Feelings Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstraction / Abstract...

Birth (One of the Arts) Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstracti...

Time Travel Black & Gold Glyphs I by Cheryl R. Riley Metallic abstract geometric symbols Gouache and metallic ink on 140# cold press watercolor paper Feminist Art and Contemporary F...

Black & Gold Glyphs III by Cheryl R. Riley Metallic abstract geometric symbols Gouache and metallic ink on 140# cold press watercolor paper Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / ...

Time Travel Gouache on 1957 Encyclopedia page Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstraction / Abstract Art / Mini...

Science * Laws of Nature (One of the Arts) Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstraction ...

Untitled (blue & red diamonds) Gouache on 1957 Encyclopedia page Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstraction / ...

Serene * Serenity Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstraction / Abstract Art / Minimali...

Intricate and lively work Watercolour, Acrylic paint and Ink. On paper framed

Bold abstract large-scale vertical pastel with textural red, black and orange forms in a sweeping diagonal composition by Renee Harwin (Austrian, b. 1924). Tag on verso with artist's name, title, and mediums. Unsigned and unframed. Image size: 54"H x 33.5"L. As a young Viennese woman, Renee Harwin found her artistic development interrupted by Hitler's arrival to her city. Soon after, Renee and her family left and moved to the United States. Harwin says that while "one can drawn his or her own conclusions from my work, I believe that the tremendous impact of change from Nazism to free America has left deep impressions on me that are played out on these canvases." Her work combines the influence of Midwest painters such as Clyfford Still and San Francisco Art Institute instructor Jack Jefferson...

'Quadrants Ephemeral' from Irene Zweig, where intellect, science, mathematics and order are at play in shades of green, blue, grey and white, in the abstract mixed media painting tha...

Joel FROMENT (1938-2023) Untitled, 1986 Pastel on paper Signed et dated “86.12” lower right 50 x 50 cm without frame Joël Froment attended the Lycée d'Art de Sèvres before entering ...

William Fredericksen Untitled mid century modern geometric abstraction, 1958-1959 Watercolor and Gouache on Board Hand signed and dated on the front 12 4/5 × 11 7/10 inches Unframed ...

Matt Magee Double Pyramid Thought Form, 2019 Oil on aluminum 25 1/2 x 19 1/4 in (64.8 x 48.9 cm) JPHB 5837

Simon Samsonian (1912 - 2003) Colorful Geometric Abstraction, 1981 Oil on paper 16 x 22 inches Signed and dated lower right Provenance: Estate of the artist This survivor of the Armenian genocide wound up in a Cairo orphanage in 1927. He rose to fame as one of Egypt’s great modernists, but after moving to Long Island late in life he withdrew into anonymity. Now his compelling story is being told. Art historians are finally beginning to realize that the power of abstraction in its early years was a zeitgeist not limited to the major European centers of the avant-garde — Paris, Munich, and Moscow — but one that quickly rippled to major cities throughout the world. Within a few decades that original shock of a new vision had inspired thousands of artists from different cultures — particularly those the Middle East — whose translations were not slavish imitations of works by seminal figures like Picasso, Braque, Malevich, and Kandinsky but creative variants colored by their respective cultures. This essay focuses on an extraordinary Armenian artist, his harrowing survival of the genocide, his rise to fame in Cairo, and his creation of a unique style of abstraction. Art historians have typically formed a chorus that teaches the history of abstraction like this: Just before and during the World War I era, several avant-garde artists emerged to create shockingly different new forms by which artists could express themselves. In Paris, Picasso and Braque broke out with cubism, quickly followed by Mondrian. In Moscow, Malevich created Suprematism, the ultimate hard-edge geometric abstraction. And in Munich, Kandinsky emerged as the father of Abstract Expressionism. Within these few short years a zeitgeist was sensed throughout the art world. American pioneers, too — particularly Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell — felt this explosive freedom of expression. When Europe was recovering after World War I it became clear that Paris would retain its title as capitol of the art world, lasting through the Roaring Twenties and even through the Great Depression. But the end of World War II changed everything. A parallel war had been won by a group of irascible young Abstract Expressionists in New York — led by Pollock, Rothko, DeKooning, and Kline. No sooner had Paris been liberated from the Germans than Picasso, Matisse, Breton, and Duchamp surrendered to the Americans. From that point on New York would be the epicenter of the art world. But a lens that focuses myopically on the war between the avant-garde of Paris and New York misses the wider narrative of multiple aesthetic modernities that developed in the several decades following World War I. For Armenian artists the matter is even more complex owing to the genocide of 1915 where more than 1.5 million people — seventy-five percent of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire — were massacred. Those not shot on the spot were sent on death marches through the Mesopotamian desert without food or water. Frequently, the marchers were stripped and forced to walk naked under the scorching sun until they dropped dead. As a child Samsonian witnessed the murder of his parents and most of the members of his family. Soon thereafter, his older sister, Anahid, quickly shepherded him into a line of children being rescued by Greek nuns. But they became separated and he lost her, too. He was sent to a Greek orphanage in Smyrna (now Izmir), on Turkey’s west coast. Because he only knew his first name, the orphanage gave him a last name based on the place where they found him — Samsun — a major port on Turkey’s north coast on the Black Sea. His birth date was unknown, too. According to Samsonian’s vague recollections he assumed he was about three or four years old at the onset of the genocide, which would place his birth year in 1911 or 1912. In 1922, when Samsonian was about 10, the Turks ended their war with the Greeks by putting Smyrna to the torch in what has been called the “Catastrophe of Smyrna.” Once again, the child was on the run, escaping the fire and slaughter. He found temporary refuge in Constantinople, but within a year that major port would fall to the Turks, too, and become renamed as Istanbul. This time, Samsonian was whisked away to an orphanage in Greece founded by the American charity, Near East Relief — which is credited with saving so many Armenian orphans that the American historian Howard M. Sachar said it “quite literally kept an entire nation alive. Any understanding of Samsonian’s approach to modernism requires careful consideration of the impact of his early years because his art is inseparable from the anguish he experienced. In 1927, when he was a teenager, he was transferred to Cairo, Egypt, then a cosmopolitan city hosting a sizable portion of the Armenian diaspora. There he lived with thirty-two other children on the top floor of the Kalousdian Armenian School. Upon graduating in 1932 he won a scholarship to attend the Leonardo da Vinci Art Institute — an Italian art school in Cairo — where he won first prize in final examinations among one hundred students. He found work with an Armenian lithographic printer and he returned to the Kalousdian Armenian School to teach drawing. In 1939 he married one of his students, Lucy Guendimian. The Cairo in which Samsonian matured as an artist was home to many prominent art collectors after World War I. In this receptive environment Samsonian exhibited widely and won many awards. Beginning in 1937 and for the next thirty years he exhibited annually at the prestigious Le Salon du Caire hosted by the Société les Amis de l’Art (founded in 1921). After World War II he hit his stride as a modernist in Cairo, counting among his peers other artists of the Armenian diaspora such as Onnig Avedissian, Achod Zorian, Gregoire Meguerdichian, Hagop Hagopian...