Alexander (Skunder) Boghossian

Skunder is one of Africa's best known contemporary artists and internationally widely exhibited. For the last twenty years his art and style have defined modem Ethiopian painting. He was the first Ethiopian artist to be honored by both the Musee d'Art Modem in Paris (1963), and the Museum of Modem Art in New York (1965), with the purchase of his works. In 1992, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African Art acquired several of his paintings. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1937, Skunder (as he prefers to be called) now lives and works in Washington, D.C. He is an Associate Professor of Painting at Howard University where he has been teaching since 1974. In 1955, he received an Ethiopian Government scholarship to study in Europe, where he studied at Saint Martins School, Central School, and the Slade School of Fine Arts, London. In 1957, Skunder moved to France, where he attended and taught at the Ecole National Superiore des Beaux Artes de Paris, and the Academie de la Grande Chumiere, Paris from 1957 to 1966.

Skunder returned to his country, Ethiopia, in 1966, and for the next three years taught at the Fine Arts School of Addis Ababa where he left a lasting impact on a generation of younger Ethiopian artists in spite of his short stay. After moving to the U.S. Skunder continued to impact Ethiopian modern painting through several Ethiopian artists such Wosene and Germai Hewitt who followed him to Howard University and studied under him. Skunder's period in Paris during the late 1950s and early 1960s, which at this time was a meeting place of diverse intellectual trends, provided him with a vigorous experience and shaped his personal philosophy and artistic style. He became associated with the Senegalese scholar and philosopher, Sheikh Anta Diop and other major figures in the Pan Africanism and Negritude movements. In Paris, Skunder worked closely with artists from Africa, Latin America, and America, specifically African-American Artists. He was particularly influenced by Paul Klee, Andre Breton, George Braque, the Cuban painter Wilfredo Lam, and Max Ernest, in addition to a group of West African artists.

As evidenced in his works, Skunder uses the most diverse techniques and media to enhance the power of expression in his paintings. Skunder's works combine relief with bark cloth and goat skin. He works with oil acrylic, gouache, crayon and pen and ink. His work titled, Time Cycle II, 1982, offers the finest example of Skunder's innovative techniques and media experimentation. Like Max Ernest, Skunder begins a painting by deliberately creating accidental effects. He developed a method of splashing water on the canvas, then spraying it with paint to create a surface alive with molecular energy. His works are vibrant in color and enriched with symbols, motifs, forms and shapes drawn from his own Ethiopian heritage, and the larger African continent, as well as his contemporary surrounding. Skunder's work synthesized his country's rich and powerful traditions where wall, scroll paintings and illuminated manuscripts date back to the 8th century, with European techniques. The best example of this synthesis is his work entitled, The Spirit is Landing, 1987-89, in which Skunder included painted scrolls on a vibrant background which became his distinguishing mark.

Bibliographies/Artists:

African Art Today: Four Major Artists; [exhibition catalogue] African-American Institute, May 14 - August 13,1974. New York: African-American Institute, 13 pp. illus.

African Artists in America. New York, N.Y.: The African-American Institute, 1977.

Beir, Ulli. Contemporary Art in Africa. New York: F. A. Praeger, 1968. pp. 173.

Biasio, Elizabeth. "Contemporary Painting" pp. 65-86. The author's Die verborgene Wirklickeit: drei athiopische Maler der Gergenwart. (The Hidden Reality: Three Contemporary Ethiopian Artists). Zurich: Volkerhundemuseum der Universitat, 1989, illus. (Boghossian, p. 74-78.).

Brown, Evelyn S. Africa's Contemporary Art And Artists. New York: The Harmon Foundation, 1966.

Fosu, Kojo. 20th Century Art of Aftrica. Volume 1. Zaria: Caskya Corporation, 1986. vii, 241 pp. illus.

Hassan, Salah. Creative Impulses/Modern Expressions: Four African Artists. Ithaca: Africana Studies and Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, 1993.

Hassan, Salah and Acha Debela, "Addis Connections: The Making of the Modern Ethiopian Art Movement," in Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa. (London and New York: Whitechapel and Flammarion, 1995

Kennedy, Jean. New Currents, Ancient Rivers: Contemporary African Artists in a Generation of Change. Washington: Smithsonian Institutional Press, 1992, pp.123-141. illus.

Melotti, Umberto. "Occidente Terzo Mundo: un uncontro nel nome dell'arte"in Il Sud del Mundo. L'altra arte conternporanea (The Other Contemporary Art). [exhibition] Traveling exhibition, 1991. Milano: Gabriele Mazzotta,1991. illus.

Mount, Marshall Ward. African Art: The Years Since 1920. Bloomington: Indiana Press, 1973. xviii, 236 pp. illus. [Reprinted by DaCapo Press, 1989].

Porter, Tom. Skunder Boghossian: Spaces [exhibition catalogue] The Trisolini Gallery of Ohio University, Athens, March 31 - May 3, 1980. Athens: Lawhead Press, 1980.