Our Tolegian Corner

    We have artwork in our house.  We like what we have but our small collection is much greater in sentimental value than appraisal value by at least ten thousand-fold.   Not surprisingly, most of our artwork is Armenian themed.

One of the first pieces I ever bought was Ladies Baking Lavash by Manuel Tolegian.  It is only a print, but it was perhaps the first times a work of art spoke to me.  I first saw it in my in-laws house and liked it very much as did my wife. 

It is a beautiful painting of nine women on a screened-in porch baking lavash.  The women are all seated on the floor and have quite a production line going.  They are baking the bread in a tonir oven, the most traditional way.  The setting is on a farm.  Perhaps in Armenia?  Perhaps in Fresno?  The woman drinking water in the foreground always captures my attention.  The colors Tolegian used are from the same earth tone pallet as Mardiros Saryan.

We were living in our first house.  There must have been an article in either The Armenian Weekly or Ararat Magazine about Manuel Tolegian’s passing.  Upon reading about him, I thought to send a sympathy note to his wife.  I do believe I wrote the editor of the publication to get an address.

Araks Tolegian wrote me back and we exchanged a few letters.  I expressed my admiration for the Ladies Baking Lavash and she told me that there were prints still for sale.  I immediately bought one.  We had it framed at a local gallery and frame shop owned by the Zennedjian family.  The painting has been on our walls our homes ever since.

Manuel Jirair Tolegian was born on October 18, 1911 in Fresno, CA.  He passed away in Sherman Oaks, CA on August 4, 1983.  He was a childhood friend of William Saroyan and wrote some of the music for Saroyan’s play “Time of Your

Tolegian with Jackson and Charles Pollack
in 1930 Tumblr

Life.”  He moved to Los Angeles to study art at the Manual Arts High School where he met and became friends with Jackson Pollack.  Tolegian and Pollack went to New York to continue their education at The Art Students League.  They traveled back and forth from NYC to LA several times together. 

There was an article in the March 4, 1941 New York Times announcing a one man show of Tolegian’s work at the Associated American Artists Galleries on Fifth Avenue.  In the short article, William Saroyan was quoted: 

A number of things distinguish Tolegian’s work.  For one thing, he has natural strength which is all over the canvas.  It isn’t the consequence of subject matter or style; it is inevitable, out of the identity of Tolegian himself.  As I see it, it is a human strength.  That is, a strength notable and exceptional for its expansiveness and gentility.

The article stated, “Mr. Saroyan adds with whimsical appreciation:

He could paint a fly on a table and make it look sad and related to the matter of human life.  You would suspect the fly knew about things, and of course  in the painting the fly would.

Per Wikipedia, “painting Armenian Ladies Baking Lavash by Armenian American artist Manuel Tolegian was selected by U.S. President Gerald Ford to hang in the White House Bicentennial.”

When Araks Tolegian sent us the print of Ladies Baking Lavash, she also sent us two postcards of Tolegian’s still lifes.  We framed and hung those as well.  One of them was Peaches and Demitasse.  Recently, my wife found a much larger framed version of the Peaches and Demitasse on a local Facebook Marketplace.  She immediately bought it and have hung it on the same wall as Ladies Baking Lavash.

Someday, I would love to see the originals.

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